Lies
by i'm.a.marker
Summary: Slightly AU: Stanford Era. Sam and Jessica have a relationship built off lies, lies that start to unravel with a trip to the Moore family home. AS Y'ALL CAN TELL: On super hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Lies

**Summary: **Sam and Jessica had a relationship built on lies, lies that slowly start to unravel with one trip to the Moore family home. Slightly AU. Stanford-Era

**Rating: **T

**Author's Note: **I haven't written in a long time, but that's no excuse. Leave reviews. Advice is always loved and so are suggestions. The first chapter is short, but I think it will get a bit longer later.

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**Chapter 1**

"Wait, wait, wait," I say, grabbing onto Sam's arm with a gentle but firm grasp before he turned away from me. When he reluctantly turns back, I feel a smile creeping on the corners of my lips that I can't stop from appearing. "You've _never_ been on a plane before? Ever?" I'm not going to lie: it's a bit amusing. I think for a moment while he hides his embarrassment, and my eyebrows turn into a furrow of confusion. "Haven't you lived in, like, a million places? Didn't you fly at least once?"

"No. We always drove," he says, rubbing the back of his neck and turning his gaze at the ground of the airport.

"Well, why didn't you tell me before I booked the flight?" I ask with a laugh. "Mom and Dad would've been fine with paying for a Rent-A-Car. Hell, Tommy would've driven down here and picked us up himself if we asked."

A crooked, nervous smile tugs at Sam's mouth, but it's so half-hearted that he doesn't even bother trying to convince me. People bustle quickly around us. I can see our terminal filling up with people, families with children screaming with laughter, businessmen with cell phone glued to their ears, even a few military men leaning their heads back and getting some shut eye before they have to board the flight. And not a single one of them looks anxious. None except for my six and a half foot tall boyfriend.

"I didn't want to bother them. They're already making room for me for the whole break…" Sam says, putting his hands in his pockets and looking away. He already knows what I'm going to say, but I know it won't matter. He's too nice to ever do something that would put someone out. Not that he puts my family out. Which is what I always tell him.

"Sam, if they didn't want you to come this weekend, they wouldn't have begged me for the past three years to bring you along," I tell him with a roll of my eyes. "We can still cancel the flight and hitch a ride on a Greyhound or something." Mom used to be a travel agent before she retired. I'm sure she could get us some sort of discount on bus tickets.

"No, no, it's fine, really," he says with a shake of his head. He takes a deep breath and looks me right in the eyes. "I'm fine. I just… I didn't think I'd be so nervous."

"Most people are the first time they fly," a voice behind Sam offers. He turns around while I crane my neck to see around his gargantuan body. When I see past his gray Stanford sweatshirt, I see a petite chick with a brunette bob and enough make-up to cake a clown. And enough clothes to just barely make her outfit legal. "Flying to Sacramento?" she asks, flashing a perfectly white smile. My insides churn with jealousy.

It's always been a problem of mine, my jealousy. I don't like other women hitting on my boyfriend. No one does. But for me, it seems to happen a hell of a lot. I'll admit, if Sam hadn't been so adorable when he asked me to point him in the direction of a pay phone the day that we met, I probably wouldn't have a second thought about him. That and the fact that he didn't hit on me. That was a nice change from the horny boys I had met so far on campus. But the fact that he didn't seem interested in other girls never really stopped the other girls from making passes, even if I was standing right next to him. Like right now with this half-naked woman who seems to have no sense of a personal bubble.

"Yeah," Sam says, inching closer to me while the chick steps further into his personal space. "We're going to Jess's family's place for the holidays."

"Are you?" the girl asks, obviously not interested, while she bats her long eyelashes at Sam.

"Yeah, and we're going to tell them about our engagement. We're pretty excited," Sam says nonchalantly, putting an arm around my shoulder and giving me a squeeze. "I think that's probably what I'm most nervous about. But thanks for the advice."

The woman stops, scoffs, and turns on her heel to stride off to the sleeping military men. I grin at my boyfriend like the Cheshire Cat when she's gone. Even though the mention of an engagement makes my stomach do happy back flips, I ignore that and marvel at him. "Who knew you were such a good liar?" I ask, giving him a playful smack on his upper arm. "What else have you been hiding from me?" I joke.

"I'm gay," he deadpans instantly.

I laugh. "No wonder you're so awkward when we have sex."

It's his turn to laugh. He hitches his backpack onto his shoulder and shakes his head. "Touché," he says lightly. He glances up at the clock board behind my head. I turn around and look. We have thirty minutes before we board. I look back to his face. He's starting to look a bit pale, and I'm starting to feel nervous myself. Sam's never been afraid of anything before. Ever.

"Why don't we go get you some coffee and walk around for a few minutes?" I ask, taking his hand. "I promise you, Sam, flying is not that scary. And I'll hold your hand the whole time, all right?" I tell him with a grin. "I've never lied to you before. Why would I start now?"

"Because you want to see the look of pure horror on my face when the plane starts taking off."

"Yeah, you know, it's always been a dream of mine to have a crowded plane of people see my boyfriend wet himself," I say with a roll of my eyes. "Come on, Sasquatch. Let's find you a Starbucks."

**LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES**

As always, my boyfriend did not disappoint. He performed remarkably well on the plane. I had no doubt that he would. If he could watch an entire Stephen King movie without so much as blinking, I figured he could get on an airplane and not have an anxiety attack. Actually, when I got nervous when we hit some turbulence, he had the nerve to lean over and rub _my _leg and say, "Nothing to worry about. It's just turbulence." Then he flashed that stupid adorable grin of his at me.

I'm never going to tell him how rendering that smile is, even though I'm pretty sure he already knows.

"So the whole family is going to be there?" Sam asks as he buckles his seat belt to ready for descent.

I nod. "All my immediate family, and maybe my grandma. It just depends on whether or not she's playing bridge today," I tell him. Grandma Marie loved her bridge games. She and Bertie and Rose could play a game of bridge for a whole month if they didn't need to get themselves to the hospital for check ups once a week.

"Okay, so Tom is the oldest, right?" Sam asks nervously. I stop my eyes from rolling. I know that he knows that. We've been over this a lot. Actually, we talk about my family all the time. He probably knows more about my dad than he knows about his own dad. "Then you, then Sierra," he says, looking hopefully at me.

"Yes, Sam, but you're also forgetting Megan," I say.

"Megan? Who's Megan?" I resist the urge to laugh while I see him scouring his own brain for a name that I've never brought up before.

"My cousin who kills you in your sleep if you get my sibling's names wrong," I say. He doesn't look amused. "Oh, come on, Sam, lighten up," I tell him with a smile. "You're going to be just fine. You're practically family already. Grandma thinks you're cute."

"Oh, good. I attract old women."

"You think I'm old?"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Re_lax_," I say with a laugh. "Seriously, Sammy, if the plane doesn't kill you, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack. Everyone," I say, leaning over and giving him a peck on the cheek, "is going to love you."

**LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES**

As promised, the whole family is waiting out in the terminal for us. I rush up and jump into my daddy's arms while Sam hangs back, smiling gently and waiting to introduce himself. "Jessie!" Daddy cries, spinning me in a tight circle while I squeal like a five-year-old little girl. "Oh, it's so good to see you, baby."

"It's good to see you too, Daddy," I mumble, burying my face into the crook of his neck and breathing in his scent of pine tree and a freshly burning fire. He's smelled like that for as long as I can remember. It smells like home. I hug Momma who spends a good minute or so sniffing and saying how beautiful I look.

"Hey, kiddo," Tommy says from somewhere beside Dad. I let go of Momma and take one good look at his cocky grin before my own smile breaks out, and I tackle him in a similar way as I did Dad.

"Tommy, look at you!" I squeal, taking a step back and giving him a once over. "No more goatee?" I ask with a laugh.

He laughs back. That goatee had been terrible, and he probably knew it. He just liked driving Momma up the wall. "No more goatee. I thought I'd go for a more… sophisticated look."

I laugh and give him another hug. "I missed you too, Tommy." As I pull away, I become acutely aware of my silent boyfriend. "Oh, gosh, guys, this is Sam," I say, grabbing Sam's hand and pulling him up to my family. "Sam Winchester. Be nice." I give a pointed look at my big brother. "He braved his first plane ride to come meet you all."

"First time on a plane, huh?" Sierra asks, eyeing my boyfriend. She looks so much older than the last time I saw her, which was just over Thanksgiving break. She has a new pink streak in her blonde hair and a wild look in her blue eyes. I already know she approves. She's my baby sister. I've made a point to know everything about her, and the look on her face is the exact same one she gets when she sees a guy she thinks was smoking. "Well, we feel special now, don't we? Welcome to the family, Sam," she said, jumping out and hugging Sam without warning.

Being five feet tall against Sam's extra foot and a half of height, Sierra is swallowed in Sam's shocked embrace, which just makes my family laugh. He has obviously been caught off guard, but in my defense, I warned him before we went on the trip: my family likes hugging.

"Thanks a lot," Sam said with a grin. "It's great to meet you all. I've heard a lot about you."

"And we've heard a lot about you too," Momma says, flashing Sam her soft smile. "Jessica's told us so much about you… Gosh, I feel like I could write a book about you."

My cheeks go red, but to my delight, Sam just chuckles. "You could try, but I doubt you could make a best seller out of it."

To be honest, I tell my mom everything, but when it comes to Sam, I only tell her the details. The ones that matter anyway. That he holds my hand when we walk to class and that he buys me chocolate and watches old chick flicks with me when I was on my period. That he knew every word to the "To Kill a Mockingbird" movie and could do a mean Mickey Mouse impersonation. That he knows how to make me feel better, even when I'm having the worst day of my life, and that I am totally and irrevocably in love with him.

It's taken three years, and the stuff I know about Sam is not only minimal and extremely depressing. Sure, I _want _to know all about him that I can, but it's hard when it comes to Sam's past. I hate to think that anything in the world had ever been bad for Sam, but the fact of the matter is, I haven't heard much from his childhood that is good. Which is something that I've decided to keep from my family, at least for now. I figure that if Sam wants them to know, he'd tell them. It would mean a lot to me if he tried to get close to them like that, but I can't expect that of him. That wouldn't be fair.

I can see Tom opening his mouth, ready to shoot out something nasty, so I interrupt. "Tommy, where's Melissa and Valerie?" I ask about his wife and daughter. Melissa has been part of the family since she and Tommy where eighteen. Most people said they would never work out, but they had never met a guy like my brother. He may be a grade A douche sometimes, but he's also one of the sweetest guys I know. Not only are Tommy and Melissa still together eight years later, but they have a five year old daughter who is the most adorable child in the world.

"They're back home watching Cooper and Vixen," Tommy says of our two Labradors, wrenching his gaze away from Sam to look at me. "And they're getting the house ready. Apparently Val has a surprise waiting for everyone."

Dad grabs my carry-on, and Mom gives Sam and me a smile. "Then we should probably get going, huh? We've got an hour car ride ahead of us, and we don't want to exhaust you before you even get dinner." I link my fingers with Sam's, and we all start down the terminal together. Before we even make it a whole ten steps, Sierra grabs Sam's arm and tugs him out of my grip.

"So, Sam," she asks, oblivious to my boyfriend's look of surprise over his shoulder. I laugh and urge him forward. "D'you have any brothers?"

"Sierra!" Momma gasps.

"Just kidding!" Sierra calls. I can hear the eye roll in her voice.

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**Author's Note: **So... what did you think? Review, criticize, but don't flame please. Seriously, that's unnecessary. And I apologize for any grammar errors there were in that chapter. No one's perfect, y'know? :D

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	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Sam looks out the window of the car and lets his jaw drop. That seems to happen a lot when people come to our house for the first time. The Moore Abode is tucked high into the mountains, a rustic looking cabin of a pretty grand size surrounded by snow-capped pine trees and frozen brooks. To most people, it's a mansion getaway. To me, it's the house that I grew up in. With a few modern modifications. Dad likes to be up-to-date with technology.

"Welcome to Moore's Mansion," Sierra says with a grin, leaning forward from her rear seat in the suburban. Sam nods and watches in awe as we pull up the winding drive.

"_This _is where you grew up?" Sam asks me.

I nod. "Yup. This is home."

I want to smack myself in the face as soon as the words are out of my mouth, but Sam doesn't seem offended. Instead, he just cranes his neck to look upwards at the towering trees and the patches of blue sky that filter between the boughs. He's never really been one to be sensitive about that sort of comment, but I always try to filter what I say anyway.

From what he's told me, he lived everywhere as a kid. Whenever his dad deemed it time, he and his older brother would pack up their belongings in the car, and the whole family would move to a new town, sometimes a new state. He said he had never been in a school for more than two months straight or a house for more than that either. It broke my heart. I am a girl who craves a bit of structure, some normalcy, something to fall back on when everything else seems to be falling to bits. My home, my house, my family: they were all things that I always count on, more than I ever realized before I met Samuel Winchester.

The car rolls to a stop, and we all clamber out, stretching our limbs after being cramped in the car for so long. I hear a deep rumbling bark and the clatter of metal tags, and I look up just in time to see our dogs bounding outside to greet me. "Cooper! Vixen!" I squeal, squatting down and wrapping my arms around their thick necks. The two animals pant and wag their tails, planting slobbery kisses all over my cheeks. "Aw, hey, babies," I tell them, giving them a good hard rub between the ears. They're wiggling with excitement. It's been a few months since I've gotten to see them.

I get to my feet and freeze, nervously looking back at Sam. Everyone in my family is at a standstill. This was the moment of truth. If the dogs didn't like Sam, we would have a problem. See, Cooper and Vixen were a good judge of character, strange as it sounds. Sierra brought home a friend from school one time, and Cooper and Vixen _hated _her. The kid was arrested for selling drugs on school property. They had loved Melissa, so now it's Sam's turn. I won't lie to you: I'm nervous.

Without a second's hesitation, both dogs bound forward and plant their big paws on Sam's chest. He topples over backwards and lands in a patch of grass, laughing as they clamber on top of him and lick his face.

"Sam!" I gasp, surging forward to see if he's been hurt. "Cooper! Vixen!" I snap at the two animals. They seem to feel no guilt at all for sending my boyfriend onto the ground.

"No, no, Jess, it's okay," Sam says, rubbing Cooper's head. "They're fine." Vixen stuffs her nose into Sam's coat pocket and pulls out a granola bar. Without pausing to look up guiltily, she rushes off into the house once more. Sam bursts out laughing. "Well, apparently they're hungry too," he comments as Cooper chases after Vixen. Sam brushes his hands off on his jeans and gets to his feet, smiling awkwardly at my family while they grin at him like a bunch of idiots. "Did I do something wrong?" he asks me quietly, smile faltering.

"No," I say. "You're doing perfectly."

"Daaadddddyyy!" There's a wail that comes from inside, and a force bursts the door open. Valerie, crying, rushes out the door and barrels into her father's legs. She sobs whole-heartedly into his coat.

"Baby, what's wrong?" Tommy asks, brushing her hair off her face and picking a Barbie sticker out of her pigtail. I told you. He's a sweetheart when you get to know him.

"Vixen and Cooper knocked over my water colors," she sniffles, wiping at her eyes and rubbing her snotty nose across Tommy's chest. "I haven't finished my picture yet."

"Why don't you start another one, sweetie?" I ask, coming closer. Valerie is so distraught that she doesn't notice that I'm home, an event that would normally have her bouncing off the walls with excitement. "Sam is a very good artist. I'm sure he could help you."

I look back, and Sam looks generally mortified.

Looks like the big bad boyfriend is afraid of a four year old in pigtails and a hot pink tutu.

Valerie's masterpiece had been a great big "Welcome home, Jessie and Sam!" sign made out of construction paper and Crayola watercolor paints. Unfortunately when Vixen and Cooper had come high-tailing their way through the house, they had bumped the table and spilled the coffee mug of murky water across the painting, leaving it completely illegible.

While everyone else works on dinner and sets the table and catches up, Sam sits himself next to Valerie at the coffee table, folding his long legs into a cross-legged position to fit beside my niece. I sip of a mug of coffee and watch as he smiles at her and picks up a paintbrush. Sierra is telling me something about last week's CSI: Miami episode, but I'm so fixated on Sam that I don't hear a word about Horatio's best line ever.

Sam pushes up his sleeves, and over the clamor of my busy household, I can hear him talking to Valerie. "That picture you made before was really pretty," he says to her. She just looks down at her new painting and frowns. "Where'd you learn how to draw like that?"

"I just know," she says stubbornly. If her mother would hear her, she would be appalled at Valerie's behavior. As it is, Melissa is helping Mom load trays of croissants into the oven and can't come over to reprimand her daughter. Sam, though, doesn't care at all. He doesn't even bat an eye.

"Well, you know, I'm twenty-one years old, and I can't even draw that well," he tells her. "You should be an artist when you grow up."

"I'm going to be an ice skater, actually," she huffs at him.

"I wanted to be a firefighter," he informs her. He's looking at his piece of orange construction paper, dragging his brush across the top and forming a picture that I can't make out from where I'm standing. "But then I found out that I had to go into the fires, and I got too scared."

Valerie's brown eyes widen as she looks upon my boyfriend's face for the first time. "_You_ were scared?" she asks, shocked. "But you're big!"

"Big people can be afraid of things," Sam says. "Like your aunt Jessica. Did you know that she's afraid of spiders?" I want to laugh and hit him at the same time. I'm happy that he's getting Valerie in a better mood, but I don't think it's necessary to do it at my expense.

Valerie giggles loudly. "Daddy's afraid of snakes. One time, Mommy, Daddy, and I went on a hike by Grandma and Grandpa's house, and we saw one, and Daddy screamed and made us walk somewhere else," she babbles quickly.

Tommy seems to hear this and walks over. "Okay, princess, why don't you go help your mom and grandma in the kitchen? I think they're starting to put sprinkles on the cake now." Valerie barrels into the kitchen, squealing happily. Meanwhile, Sam is unfolding himself from the ground and brushing the wrinkles off his sweatshirt. Tommy sizes him up and down. His eyes zero in on the exposed flesh of Sam's forearms, and I feel my stomach twist in discomfort.

I approach only seconds after I can stop the question from leaving my brother's lips.

"That's a pretty nasty set of scars you got there, Sam," Tommy says nonchalantly. He takes a sip of his beer and asks, "How'd you get them?" It's his secret way of seeing if Sam gets in frequent bar fights or dangerous car crashes or something. And right now, I really just want to smack my brother clear across the face. Being protective or not, it's none of his business.

Sam looks down at his arms, confused. Normally, he dons long-sleeved shirts, so he never has to worry about probing questions from annoying people, but since he wanted to avoid getting paint on his sweatshirt, he has the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

"Oh," he says, shoving the sleeves back down. "I, uh—"

"I don't think—," I start, but Sam silences me.

"No, it's fine, I uh," he says uncomfortably. "I lived in a couple of bad areas when I grew up," he tells my brother. Tommy doesn't seem to believe him, which makes my face go beet red, and the want to hit him goes through the roof. "My brother forgot to pick me up from school one day, and as I walked home, I got jumped. Couple of gang kids just trying to get some money from me."

Tommy looks skeptically at Sam's now-covered arms. "Where'd you even live?"

"Detroit," Sam answers. "St. Louis city. Chicago. New York projects." And that, I knew, wasn't even half of them.

Tommy's skepticism seems to heighten, and his guilt has not yet shown. I look apologetically at my boyfriend, but he has his eyes locked on Tommy. I'm sure he hates this questioning. It's taken me three years to get a lot of stuff out of him, but I know he's trying to make a good impression on my family. Refusing to answer questions just makes him look suspicious, and he knows that.

"How many places did you _live_?" he asks.

"Tommy, that's enough!" I snap at him, but he doesn't seem to hear me.

"What did your parents do that had you moving around so much anyway?" Tommy asks.

The chatter seems to have gone silent by now, and Sierra, sensing the tension, loudly begins to help Valerie with putting icing and sprinkles onto the dessert.

"Tommy!" I yell. Finally, my big brother turns to look at me. When he gets a look at my face, his expression drops, and suddenly he senses that he's done something wrong. I look over at Sam who just looks a bit dazed. Most people don't ask about all of his weak spots within moments of conversation.

Tommy just seems to have that effect on people.

He leans down and picks up a painting from the coffee table. He clears his throat and says, "Well, looks like Valerie got her art skills from her father." He turns the page, trying to figure out what exactly it is that he's looking at.

"Actually, that one's mine," Sam offers quietly.

Tommy looks up and looks cautiously at me, as if asking permission to ask another question. I raise my eyebrows at him, clearly not happy, but he proceeds anyway. "What is it?"

Sam reaches out and takes the paper, turning it every which way just like my brother had. "It was supposed to be a truck," he says, squinting his eyes. "But now I'm not so sure. I actually think Valerie's picture is much better than mine is."

Everyone laughs. I give Sam a thankful smile, and he returns the grin. I can always count on him to keep his cool, even when I'm about to flip a lid. I'm sure Tommy's happy about that too, otherwise he'd have a big old Five Star planted right on his cheek.

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**Author's Note: **So, it was definitely on the shorter side, but I'm just going to update this little by little. Here's what I want from y'all. I would like you guys to reply with what YOU want to see. Yes, writing is for the writer's enjoyment, but wouldn't it be fun if you all got to help out with the story? I have a basic plot in my head, but still, some details need to be filled, and I figured, hell, why not? You guys are the ones reading. I'm your puppet, you puppet masters.** Thank you so much for your first reviews. I hope to get some more.  
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	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

At dinner, Tommy didn't ask any questions, but that didn't mean there wasn't conversation. Everyone wanted to know about how school was going. I wanted to hear about Sierra's cheerleading competition. Sam wanted to know just about everything, so he just sat back and listened. Halfway through the main course, Valerie almost face plants in her spaghetti, and Melissa excuses herself to get her daughter into her room that my mom and dad have set up for her.

In the Moore Mansion, all family has a place.

When Melissa sits back down, she starts to talk to Sam. "So, Sam, where are you from?" she asks. Obviously, she wasn't paying much attention to the dilemma that happened before dinner. I don't blame her, though. She was cooking and probably too preoccupied to care about me snapping at my brother. It happens a lot.

"I was born in Kansas," Sam tells her. "Lawrence."

"So you're a farm boy, huh?" Melissa asks with her brilliant smile. I love Melissa. She is one of the kindest people I have ever met, and she has a way of making everyone feel welcome without even realizing it. She's being so nice to Sam that he doesn't seem to be at all awkward about answering these questions about himself, something that he normal avoids at all costs.

"I guess you could say that," Sam laughs with a slight nod. "We moved when I wasn't even a year old, though, so I don't remember it at all."

"Who knows?" Momma cuts in. "Maybe you have some untapped farming skills that you don't know about. Lord knows we could use someone around here who knows how to care for our landscape."

"So what are you majoring in at Stanford?" Daddy asks as he stuffs a bite of food into his mouth.

"I'm actually studying law," Sam says. "I'm hoping to get into Stanford's law school in a few years."

"He's pretty much already in," I offer to everyone. Sam, modest as ever, just looks down at his plate with red cheeks. "It's just a matter on whether or not they have enough scholarship money for him. _Which_," I add, nudging his arm with my elbow, "they're probably going to just hand to him the second he applies."

"So you've got a good grip on law, huh, son?" Daddy asks.

Before Sam can be humble about it, I answer for him. "Good? He's the best in our class, hands down. He's already been asked to help the professor with a court case before."

Tommy looks impressed. He swallows a bite of food and asks, "Really? As a junior?"

"It was a small one," Sam says.

"It was a_ murder trial_!" I exclaim, exasperated.

"A murder trial?" Sierra asks, her inner crime lab technician getting the best of her. She and I share the guilty pleasure of watching any of the CSI's or the Law and Order's that ever come on television.

"Just because a gun was involved doesn't mean it was a _murder trial_. Someone fired a shot at a range down in San Jose, and the gun backfired," he corrects me. "Professor Higgins knew that I know a bit about firearms and asked a few questions. I didn't solve any murder mysteries or anything like that."

"You know about guns?" Momma asks interestedly.

At the same time, Tommy is aghast. "You know about _guns_?"

Sam balks, feeling like he's said something wrong. "Well, yeah, my dad hunted a lot when I was a kid," he says. "I don't carry any or anything, never have. But after I got jumped a few times," at this, I glare at my older brother, "Dad taught me how to use one."

"Could you teach Jess?" Momma asks.

Tommy is appalled. "Mom!"

"Every girl should know how to protect herself," Momma says with a shrug. At this, she winks at me, and I smile. Momma always has my back. "I don't see why not."

"Mom, Jess doesn't need to use a _gun_," Tommy says. "If wherever she's living is that dangerous, we should take her out of school and send her to school here. But we don't need to train her to use _firearms_."

"Honey, I think you're insulting our guest," Melissa says, placing a hand on her husband's arm to calm him down. Tommy looks over in Sam's direction. My boyfriend shakes his head and tries to speak, but my big brother can't shut his damned mouth.

"Oh, come on, Mom, it's insane! You know it's insane. No mothers _actually _want their children using guns!" Tommy exclaims. "I'm sure Sam's mom didn't want him using a gun when he was younger either. Am I right?"

I feel sick to my stomach, and I have never been angrier at my brother in my life. I want to stand up and smack him clear across the face. Again. Sam remains quiet as the rest of the table falls silent, politely waiting for an answer. After a few moments of silence, everyone seems to realize the weight of the question.

"Jessie, what about your major? Still going on with pre-med?" Sierra asks, sensing the tension.

I nod. "I think so. But I don't think I want to go into cardiology anymore," I say.

"What do you want to go into?" Dad asks curiously. It had always been my dream to follow after him, become a great heart surgeon, but he doesn't care what I do, as long as I'm happy. That's what I love about my daddy. There's no pressure whatsoever to be what I don't want to be.

"I was think of being a pediatrics nurse," I say. When everyone starts jabbering about how wonderful that sounds, I mouth a silent thank you to my sister, who gives me a wink identical to my mother's previous one.

"So, wait, I'm confused," Melissa says, putting down her utensils. She turns to Sam. "So if she's majoring in pre-med, and you're in pre-law, how'd you two meet up?"

This is a story I'm happy to let Sam tell. It's not intrusive, and it's a story that I think Sam _likes _to tell to people, or at least he always has a smile on his face when he tells it. The one that creeps onto his lips when he starts it now warms my heart, and I can see my mom and Sierra's hearts melting right across the table.

Somehow I know that I'm going to have a squealing teenager in my room after dinner is over.

"Well, it was my first day on campus. Actually, I think it was my first forty-five seconds," Sam says. "And I saw Jess sitting in the commons with her roommate, and even though, I'll admit, I was nervous as hell, I went up and asked her where the pay phone was."

He's interrupted by Sierra's scoff of disappointment. "The _pay phone_?" she asks. "How romantic is that?"

"Sierra, shush," Momma admonishes her. "Go on, Sam."

"I thought she was going to laugh at me or something," Sam says with a shake of his head. "I looked like hell, to be honest. I hadn't slept in three days, and I was living off fast food and coffee for a week before I got to school. I looked like I had been run over by a truck."

I remember exactly what he looked like. His brown hair was an absolute mess. Not one piece stuck out in the same direction as the other. The bags under his eyes could've been used as automobile air bags, and his clothes looked like they hadn't been washed in a good week. But when he smiled, everything else just kind of seemed to not matter anymore. He looked so weak and tired, but he still managed to give me a grin, trying to assure me even before he knew me that he was okay. So I pointed him in the right direction and prayed that he'd find a bed soon.

"She found me sleeping in the courtyard a few hours later, I think," Sam tells my family. "I don't remember going there, but after I got off the phone, I apparently walked right in there and went to sleep."

"I helped him get registered and find his dorm," I finish for him. He hardly remembers this part. He was only half awake, and he could barely string a sentence together. "And then I didn't see him for a week or so. We met up in psychology, I think."

Sam shook his head. "Art history with Professor Mayer," he corrects me. "And Jess promised to help keep me awake."

"In the end, it was really me who needed him to wake me up," I say with a laugh. "That class was awful."

"I didn't think it was too bad," Sam says with a shrug of his shoulders, stabbing at the food on his plate.

"Of course you didn't. You like every class you take," I say with a roll of my eyes. "You always get a good grade."

"I don't know what you're complaining about," Sam says with a sip of his drink. "You ended up getting an A in the class anyway."

"That was because you gave me your notes before the exam."

"Okay, okay," Sierra says, stopping our conversation. "So enough about school. Who asked who out?"

Sam and I glance at each other. I take the initiative this time. "We actually don't really know," I tell my family honestly. I can feel the derisive snort bubbling up from my brother's mouth, and I silence him with a hard glare before it starts. "We just kept meeting up with each other, and then I guess eventually it was Sam who asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with him."

"What movie?" Sierra asks. She's storing all this information in her head. She loves these sorts of things. Love stories and crime scenes, that's my little sister for you.

"Um, some grade B horror flick," Sam admits. "It was Jess's choice. Not mine."

Sierra's jaw drops, and Tommy laughs out loud. "_You_ chose a horror movie?"

Horror movies scare the crap out of me. I cried when I watched Casper the Friendly Ghost as a kid. And I can't stomach gore at all. I get squeamish and just yell until the people stop attacking each other. Sierra wants to kill me when we watch CSI together, but I just can't help it. Seeing all that blood and all the violence just gets me.

"I didn't want Sam to go running for the hills," I admit. "I thought that if I chose a horror movie, he wouldn't think I was just some typical lovesick college girl, that he would actually remember me."

"I think I remember you more because you ended up throwing up on my shoes during a fight scene," Sam fills in with a laugh.

My cheeks grow hot, and I smack him on the arm. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that ever again!" I exclaim. I'm not mad at him. I could never be mad at him, but I can tell by the gleam in Tommy's eyes that says he'll never let that one go.

"I didn't think family counted," Sam says with a laugh. I know that he shared everything with his brother, so it's no surprise to me that he didn't think twice about it here.

"Family's the _only _time it counts!" I say. "They're the ones who have license to mock you for the rest of your life."

Everyone around me is laughing, but I think it's more about the bickering between Sam and me than the story that came before it. I look Sam right in the eyes, and we both burst out laughing. It had been the most mortifying moment of my entire life, but Sam was so nice about it that it lessened the humiliation. I think he felt bad about the whole thing, but it was my fault that I got us there in the first place. But he did bring me home and give me a kiss on the forehead. The next day he had called me to check up and set up another date. At an ice cream place this time, given that I wouldn't throw up on him.

"That movie didn't even scare you!" I exclaim weakly. "How did it not scare you?"

Sam shrugs his shoulders. "Horror movies don't scare me. Most are completely inaccurate anyway."

"Well, yeah, it was about a ghost that killed people. Of course it was inaccurate. But wasn't it _scary_?" I ask. Sam just shakes his head.

"Not really."

"Not much scares you, does it, Sammy?" my brother asks a bit snidely. I send him a swift kick under the table, which causes Tommy to jump up and yelp, smashing his knee on the underside of the dinner table. Honestly, it's not what Tommy said. What he said could be completely innocent, a playful way to move the stream of conversation along. It's his tone that makes me want to tear my hair out.

And now I sound like my mother.

Sam, not sure how to answer the question, just stares. I don't blame him. My brother is an idiot. "Uh, I don't—"

"Please, don't answer that, Sam," I say. "Tommy is a moron."

"Just trying to make conversation, Jessie," Tommy says nonchalantly, turning to his meal.

"Well, try not to," I snap at him.

"Okay, who wants dessert?" Mom interrupts before the fight gets big and stands on her feet. Good old Mom, the peacekeeper. "Sam, you're finished. Will you help me grab the cake and the plates?"

Sam stands up and grabs his own dirty dish. "Of course," he says and starts to clear away the rest of the empty dishes and food-splattered silverware. After he and Mom leave the room, I hear her strike up a cheery conversation with Sam about Stanford, and I wheel on my brother.

"Will you be nice?" I whisper harshly.

"I am being nice!" Tommy exclaims in a hushed voice.

I snort. "You've wanted his head since the minute you saw him in the terminal. Will you get off his back? He's doing fine!"

"She's right, Tom," Dad says, nodding sagely at my brother. "Leave the poor boy alone. He hasn't done anything wrong."

"He hasn't done anything wrong _yet_," Tommy points out with a sly smile.

"Who says he's going to do something wrong?" I bark. If anyone in the world knows how to rile me up like this, it's my brother.

"Tommy will make him do something wrong, if he gets his way," Sierra says with an eye roll. "Forget about him, J. _I _like him."

"Thank you!" I exclaim exasperatedly, staring pointedly at my brother.

"For what it's worth, I like him too," Melissa says quietly. "I think he's sweet, Jessica. You really have a nice boyfriend."

"I'm sorry I can't say the same for you," I say back apologetically.

A dirty napkin is hurled across the table and smacks me in the face. I turn to Tommy with a crooked eyebrow. "You don't want to start that right now," I tell him.

"Start what?" he asks, annoyed.

"Actually, that was me," Dad says. We all turn and look at him and burst out laughing. Dad always knew how to break up fights with a joke. "Stop making fun of your brother, Jessica. And Tom, you need to apologize to Sam by the end of tonight."

"_Apologize_?" Tommy asks. "Apologize? Come on, Dad, what have I even done to him?" I find it humorous how Dad can have us all feeling like children, even know when we have our own lives and our own families.

"You've been a dick, that's what," Sierra says. She's always had my back, especially when it came to my boyfriends.

"Sierra, don't use that language at the table please," Dad says patiently to my eighteen-year-old little sister. "Or ever, for that matter. It's a bad habit."

"I learned from you, Daddy," Sierra says with a bright, childish smile.

"Dad doesn't swear," Tommy says with a roll of his eyes.

"He does when thinks he's alone, and he jams his finger into the snowmobile hood," Sierra points out. We all laugh again. She's my father's daughter, through and through.

"All right, enough," Dad says with a laugh. "Just don't say those things at the dinner table."

At that moment, we hear a peal of laughter from the kitchen, and my mother appears with Sam at her side. They're both sporting smiles and silverware. Sam has the cake held firmly in his hands.

"Cake anyone?"

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thanks for the reviews! I really appreciate them! Keep it coming, guys! Your motivation is what gives me more ideas.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **My updates will be a little slow. I have exams coming up, so I'm really busy. Damn real life. I want to be a Winchester instead. Anyway, thank you all so much for your reviews! Don't worry! Angsty!Sammy and Hurt!Sammy and everything else that you wanted is coming in later chapters. If you ask, you will recieve. Well, if it goes with the plotline. THANKS, ALL!

**Chapter 4**

"They hate me."

"They don't hate you."

"Don't say that to be nice. They hate me."

"They _don't _hate you. Only Tommy hates you, and no one cares about him anyway."

"Jess, you aren't helping."

"I tried to help, but you told me not to be nice."

Sam buries his face in his hands. He's sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows rested on his knees. He's a nervous wreck, but as far as I can tell, this breakdown is far overdue. It's been almost eight hours since we got to my house. As boyfriends go, Sam's lasted quite a long time.

I slide onto the bed behind him, crawling across the mattress on my knees and slip my arms over his shoulders, rubbing his chest and kissing him on the side of the head. "Sam, I _promise _to you that they don't hate you. Seriously. Even Tommy doesn't hate you. He's just overprotective."

"He thinks I'm a freak."

"_I _think you're a freak. _He_ thinks you're a rapist."

Sam throws a glare my way that I've never seen him use before. I lean back and sit on my legs that are folded below me. Sam stands up and starts to pace nervously around the floor. I huff, brushing my hair out of my eyes.

"What's got _your_ panties in a twist?" I ask a bit heatedly. Really, I'm just playing around. There's no need for him to get all sensitive about it.

"It just… it means a lot to me that they like me, Jess," Sam says, still pacing. "It's just…" He attempts to explain it to me and stops short, shaking his head. "Forget it."

I feel a flare of anger flicker in my chest. Forget it? He hasn't even finished his sentence, and he's already telling me to forget it. That's not fair. I tell him everything, even if I don't think he'll understand. Knitting my eyebrows in annoyance, I bark, "I can't just _forget _it. You're obviously upset about something. Can't you just tell me what it is?"

Sam winces when he hears the anger in my voice. He stops pacing and leans up against the dresser behind him, hands nervously feeling around for something to fiddle with while he talks. "I don't know," he says, looking at the floor. "It's just… I don't want to blow it. It just means a lot to me that they like me. I don't want to be rejected."

"Sam." I stand up, and I take his hands. "Look at me," I say sternly when he avoids my eyes. "I don't care what your family did or said to you. Look at me," I repeat as his gaze starts to wander away, ashamed. "I love you… Sam, I do. And even if my family takes a while to warm up to you, they're going to love you too. So please, stop worrying about them." I reach my hand up and caress his cheek. Sam smiles softly, not breaking our eye contact. "And even if Tommy is being a douche, he's going to love you too. You'll see."

Sam kisses me gently on the lips, leaving a trace of a smile on my mouth. "Thank you," he says quietly. I nod, folding into his embrace. "Now I'm going to shower, all right?"

"Don't take too long," I say, letting go of him. "I haven't gotten to sit down and talk with you in over eight hours. I think we're long due for a conversation." He chuckles and heads into the connected bathroom.

I stand at the foot of the bed, spread my arms out like a pair of wings, and drop onto the mattress with a sigh. I roll onto my side and grab my copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird." The way I see it, I have T-Minus five minutes of alone time before Sam and I start to share that alone time together.

I've taken out my contact lenses and gotten to the Halloween party at Scout and Jem's school when I hear a knock on the door. Standing, I set my book on the bed, not caring at all about cracking the spine of the worn text. I crack open the door and swing it open wider with a smile on my face when I see who's behind it. "Hey, Sierra," I say brightly.

"Hey, Four Eyes," she jokes about my glasses. "I just came to tell you good night and that…" Her voice trails off, and her eyes focus on something just beyond my shoulder. Confused, I turn around and see my boyfriend rummaging through his suitcase clad in a pair of boxers and nothing else.

"Eyes off," I say.

"Marry him!" Sierra manages to shout before I shut the door in her face. Behind the wood, I hear, "Night, J!"

"Night, kid!" I say back, rolling my eyes.

Sam looks up from the depths of his bag. "Who was that?" he asks, grabbing a tee shirt and slipping it on over his head.

"Sierra. She came to say good night." I clamber onto the bed and kneel in front of Sam, looping my arms around his neck. Pecking him on the lips, I pull him onto the bed. I murmur in his ear. "Are you ready to turn the lights out?"

Sam kisses my neck.

"I'm going to take that as a no."

"You kissed me first," he says.

"And you're going to have to kiss me last," I tell him, pulling myself into a sitting position. He bends to my will and sits back with me. "We've got an early morning tomorrow. Mom's making pancakes. Sierra wants to have breakfast with us before she goes to a cheer practice. Besides, I'm willing to bet you anything that Tommy is camped outside our bedroom door right now listening to our conversation."

"He is!" I hear Sierra's voice from the other side of the door.

Sam looks mortified, but I just laugh and turn to the doorway. "Go to bed, Sierra! And seriously, Tommy, get out of here. Don't you have a wife or something?"

"Dad says I have to apologize to Sam!" Tommy exclaims.

I roll my eyes. "Very mature, Tommy."

"Apology accepted," Sam says to the door.

"Now go away! We're trying to sleep!" I shout.

"Or… whatever," Sam murmurs quietly with a grin, kissing me again.

**LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES**

When I wake up, it's three o'clock in the morning, and Sam is missing.

I see that the sliding doors to our balcony are cracked open, and the frigid air that's pouring in is freezing me, even in my pajamas. I wrap the blankets around me and clamber off the bed awkwardly, working hard not to fall flat on my ass. I stumble across the ground, and upon hearing a hushed voice outside the door, I stop, tucking myself into the shadows. I pull the blankets around me, shiver, and strain my ears to listen.

"I know it's late," Sam says quietly. There's murmuring. "I know you don't care, I just… I feel bad. What are you doing?" He waits for an answer. For a moment, I think he's insane and talking to himself until I realize that his cell phone isn't plugged into the charger on the wall. "Where?" he asks. "Nevada? So you're not too far from me, huh?" He's quiet for a moment and gives a strangled laugh. "I'm actually near Mammoth Mountain right now. With Jess and her family." I hear Sam sigh exasperatedly. "Yes, I'm still dating her. Otherwise I wouldn't be coming to see her family."

For a minute, I panic. Who is he talking to? Another woman? But then he speaks again, and I feel guilty for even thinking something bad about him.

"Seriously, Dean, I'm not going to dump her because _you_ think I'm tying myself down too early," Sam says bitingly, though I can hear the laughter in his voice.

I know that they talk sometimes. At least they've written letters to each other a few times, but this mysterious Dean figure is someone that I have never met before. And I'm pretty sure Sam hasn't seen since Dean since he himself ran away from home without a word and came to Stanford three years ago. I think Sam feels guilty because he ran off all that time ago. Apparently his dad wasn't so happy about the college thing, so Sam just booked it before anyone knew he was even accepted. At least that's what I've pieced together from Sam's scattered information about his past. He doesn't talk about pre-Stanford often. But he does talk about Dean a lot. Sometimes, I feel like I know more about his brother than I know about my boyfriend.

Sam's tone changes abruptly. "Stop, Dean. I don't care." My ears perk up. "I don't— _stop_. I'm happy where I am…Stop, okay? You're making me feel bad… _No_, I _shouldn't_ feel bad. Look, bring it up with Dad. He was the one who told me not to come back." The bitterness in Sam's laugh is frightening. I've never heard him sound like this before. "Yeah, Dean. He did mean it, otherwise I'd probably still be hunting with you guys. …And it's _my _fault that he's stubborn? If he wants me to come back, he can call me himself."

Hunting? Dean wants Sam to come and hunt with him? That's really random. Though Sam did say that Dean had the same passion as their father. The rest of the information is new to me. Sam's dad told him not to come back? So Mr. Winchester had _known _that Sam left? Who would let their son run away like that? And who would tell them not to come back home? Biting my lip and knocking my knees together in the cold, I realize now what Sam was saying earlier. I wouldn't understand why he wanted my family to like him so much because my family had never rejected me.

"What do you mean he _can't_?" Sam snaps. "He's perfectly capable of calling me. I haven't changed my number since I got it when I was _seventeen_, just in case he wants to." I put a hand over my slightly agape mouth. He never told me why he wouldn't get a new number, even after he switched cell companies. "What—?" His voice goes quiet for a moment, and when he speaks, he sounds like he's strangled. "How long?" he asks quietly. "Two _weeks_? And you didn't think to call me? …Okay, so I don't always pick up, but you could've left a message… or an email… or-or something! How could you keep this from me?" I can hear his eyes rolling in his voice. "Right, Dean, that's fair. Because I went to college, I stopped caring about my family. Go to hell." And I hear a loud murmuring of what I assume to be Dean's voice over the phone before Sam hangs it up.

He sighs and hunches over the balcony, resting on his elbows and running a hand over his face. I bite my lip and step out quietly onto the porch, feet freezing as the glacial air whips all around me. "Sam?" I ask quietly.

He jumps and whips around, tired eyes looking frightened through the sadness. "Jess. What are you doing awake?"

"I guess I didn't feel you next to me," I answer quietly. After sleeping next to someone every night for a year, you get used to the presence always being there, that extra warmth, that arm laid protectively over you. It was weird to wake up without it. I take a step closer to him. "You okay?" I ask tentatively.

He nods, eyes set on a point behind my head.

I put my hand on his cheek and gently direct his gaze into mine. Reluctantly, his eyes turn down to me. "Are you okay?" I ask again, hoping for an honest answer.

He bites his lip and sighs, wrenching his stare away. Patiently, I wait for his resolve to break. It won't. "I think I just need to sleep."

"Can you not do that right now?" I ask a bit heatedly. I feel like a bad girlfriend, but I can't help it. He's obviously upset, and I'm really not in the mood to deal with his macho man bullshit. I put up with a lot, but right now, I just want the truth. I just want to help.

"Do what?" he asks, obviously shocked by my outburst.

"That stupid 'I-Don't-Want-To-Worry-You-So-I'm-Not-Going-To-Say-Anything' crap that you always pull. I'm done with it. I just want to know what I can do to help."

"There's nothing to _help_, Jess. I'm fine."

"Can you at least tell me what's wrong?" I ask, unable to keep the hurt out of my voice. He'll talk about his feelings up until the point when it comes to his family, and then I feel like it would be easier to break into Fort Knox than it would be my boyfriend's head. I just wish that for once, he would just come clean instead of me having to poke and prod and come up with no answers.

"Nothing's wrong, okay?" Sam says quietly, tucking a wisp of my hair behind my ear. "But there will be if you get pneumonia out here. Let's get you inside."

"Don't bother," I spit, stepping away from his touch. "I'm sleeping on the couch."

"Jess—"

"Good night, Sam."

Really, the first night out to my parent's house, and we just got into our first real fight in months. Could our timing be any worse?

* * *

**Author's Note: **Well? Comments, suggestions, criticisms? I suppose you could flame the story, but I don't really see the point? Anyway, I hope you liked it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: **A longer chapter than usual this time! Yay! So, just so you all know: 1) You're AWESOME! 2) A lot of this is pre-written, so I know it seems like I'm not coming through on my promises to put your suggestions in, but those come in later chapters! 3) Updating will be slow. I have exams Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then I'm out for the summer. So bare with me! THANK YOU ALL! YOU ROCK.

**Chapter 5**

I wake up the next morning in the bed, wrapped tightly in the sheets. Sam is nowhere in sight. This seems to be a common occurrence. It takes me a moment to remember that he and I got in a fight, and now I'm upset. I know that I probably shouldn't have snapped at him last night, but there is only so much I can take of him shutting me out. I let him in. Don't I deserve the same?

Then I remember that I went to go sleep on the couch last night, yet here I am, tangled in the blankets on our bed. With an extra blanket wrapped around me, actually, and a note on the pillow that says in Sam's untidy scrawl, "I'm sorry" and that's it. Annoyed, I crumple the stupid piece of paper in a ball and throw it at the wall with a scoff of anger. It's so hard to be mad at a boyfriend who does sweet things without even realizing it. Not only did he pick me up and tuck me in without waking me, he apologized, which I'm told by my friends, is near impossible to get boyfriends to do.

So that leaves one big question: if I'm sleeping in the bed, where exactly is Sam?

"Sam?" I call out, rubbing a hand through my hair.

I get no answer, so I plod onto the balcony. It's empty. "Seriously, Sam," I mutter quietly, pulling the doors shut behind me. "Where are you?" I grab a sweatshirt off a rocking chair in the corner of the room and slip it on. Searching in vain for something more than my underwear to don, I grab a pair of Sam's boxers and roll them up to fit around my waist. Having a large boyfriend may scare away potential skeezes coming to hit on me, but it's not convenient when I need to wear his pants.

I don't know where Sam could be. Surely he didn't go sleep on the couch? That thing is way too small for him to fit in it comfortably. Besides, why would he ever want to wake up with my whole family down there when he was by himself? And he didn't know the grounds, so it's not like he was dumb enough to go on a walk by himself. Did he call a cab and leave? Sam wouldn't do that, would he?

I decide to shower and gather my thoughts. When I open the bathroom door, something stops it from opening up wide. I crane my head around the corner. My boyfriend's foot is stopping the door's progress. He's slumped against the wall, his chin resting on his chest, and he's zoned out, completely unaware of my need for the bathroom. "Sam?" I practically gasp. He tried to sleep on the bathroom floor? I squeeze through the gap and crouch down next to him. "Did you sleep in here?"

Sam shakes his head weakly. "Didn't sleep," he mumbles. "Couldn't."

"Yeah, I can't imagine this would be comfortable," I say worriedly. Taking his hand, I start to get back up to my feet. "Come on, honey. Let's get you into a bed." Because no matter how mad I was at him last night, no matter how upset I still feel now, I'm not going to let him go an entire day with my family when he hasn't gone to sleep.

He does this a lot, actually, pulling all nighters. He told me in sophomore year that he had to do it a lot as a kid. Why he would have to do it, I don't know, and I don't think I want to. But sometimes, I can't even tell that he's sleepless. Not immediately. It'll take me a few hours to really see how tired he is. I don't know how he does it. Or why. He's not telling, and I'm not asking. As much as I want to right now, I don't want to get shut down again, like last night.

His hand tugs me back towards him. "No, I couldn't because you're… you're mad at me. I couldn't go to sleep if you were mad at me."

I stop moving and let my jaw drop. Why? Why was I such a horrible girlfriend? What did I do in this life or another that gave me a guy like Sam Winchester? "I'm not mad at you, Sam," I say. "Now, come on—"

"Yes, you are," he says, looking up with tired hazel eyes. "You're mad at me because I didn't tell you what's happening. But I'll tell you if it makes you happy. I—"

"Sam," I say sternly, feeling like I'm talking to my little niece. "I don't want to know. Not until you're ready to tell me, okay? So let's get you into bed and get you some sleep. You're no good to my family if you fall asleep in your pancakes."

I somehow manage to get him to lift himself off the floor and to flop into bed. I pull the blankets up around him, and by the time I turn out the lights and lean down to give him a kiss and apologize, he's already fast asleep with his letter pressed against his cheek. I slip the paper out from under his head and peck his forehead. Silently, I slip out our bedroom door and start to the kitchen.

Mom is sitting at the table and knitting something with nimble fingers, while Dad reads his paper and reaches blindly for his coffee mug. "Morning, everyone," I say, taking a seat beside Momma. I try my best to sound chipper, but nothing fools my mom.

"Morning, sweetheart," she says, looking over at me with a skeptical eye. "Is everything all right? You look worried."

"Sam just went to sleep," I tell her, reaching across the table and taking a bite out of my dad's pancakes.

"He just went backto sleep?" Daddy asks, lowering his paper and looking over his bifocals at me.

"No, I mean that he didn't go to sleep last night, and he _just _went to sleep," I tell them.

"Is something the matter?" Daddy asks, folding up the newspaper and setting it down on the table. "Is he sick? Should I go talk to him?" My dad is a cardiologist, but he took general doctoring courses. He could cure anything if you asked him to.

"No, it's just…" I bite my lip, contemplating. They're my parents, I decide. I can tell my parents. It's not the same as telling Tommy or Sierra. "He called his brother last night, and it upset him."

"Do you know why?" Mom asks, getting up and making me a mug of coffee. She sets the steaming cup in front of me that I wrap my hands around and take a thoughtful sip out of. This feels right. If anyone could figure out what to do here, it's my mom and dad.

"No, and that was the problem," I say. "He wouldn't tell me, so I yelled at him."

"Oh, sweetheart, are you all right?" my mom asks. She was always the best at making sure I was okay after a break up or a fight. She always knows just what to say. I don't know how she does it, and I wish I inherited her silver tongue, but all I got my daddy's tongue: sharp and witty.

"I'm fine," I assure her. "It's just that… well, I think it's about his dad, and from what I could hear, I think it's bad."

"You were eavesdropping on his conversation?" Dad asks, astounded. I may like to get what I want, but I never played dirty.

"I didn't mean to. He was out on the balcony and… look, the point is, I don't know what to say to get him to talk to me. What if it's something really bad, and he's too nervous to tell me if he wants to leave? I don't want to _make_ him stay here."

"Well, do you think that he'd want to go out and see his father?" Mom asks me patiently. "You've been dating this boy for almost three years now. I think you can make a pretty good guess at this thing."

"And from what I've seen of Samuel so far, he doesn't seem like someone who would leave his father when he needs it," Dad interjects. Mom shoots him a glare. She always can tell what people's chinks in their armor are. Dad's always pretty oblivious unless it's one of his children. "I'd be more than happy to buy him a ticket to get him wherever he needs to go if that's the issue."

"It's not like that," I snap at him. I instantly feel bad for snapping, and I pinch the bridge of my nose and breathe deeply. "Sam and his father don't really get along that well."

"Regardless, he seems like he has his head on pretty straight," my dad says. "He doesn't seem like the kind of kid who would let petty arguments get in the way."

"Roger," Momma warns. She can tell that Dad's riling me up a bit. Dad's making it sound like Sam is some bad kid if he doesn't want to go visit his dad, and he doesn't even know half the story.

"It wasn't like they got in an argument now and again, Dad," I say as evenly as I can. "His dad was an alcoholic. And abusive, I think."

He and my mom both don't have anything to say to that. They exchange looks and wait for the other to answer, but nothing comes. They both stare hopelessly at me. Mom's eyes start looking wet. She's always had a bleeding heart, especially when it comes to children. Sam's story is probably making her upset, and she hasn't heard the worst of it yet.

"Why don't you find out what's wrong first, and then we can worry about it?" Mom offers.

"And if we find out that something bad happened, you should just ask him if he wants to leave, and if he says no, you're just going to have to trust that that's what he wants," Dad says with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry, baby. I just don't have the answers that you're looking for."

I sigh and stare moodily at a knot in the wood of the tabletop. "It's not fair."

"Life isn't fair, big sister," Sierra says happily as she sits in the empty spot at the table right next to me. "Cute boxers, by the way." We all just stare as she takes some of the pancakes off the platter in the center and plops them on the plate in front of her. "So what did _you_ do last night, J?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, eyes narrowed. I decide to let the conversation with Mom and Dad lie until later. Sierra doesn't need to be brought into this also.

"Well, I was just curious as to how you got a hold of Sam's boxers is all," she says nonchalantly as she grabs up the syrup and douses her hot cakes.

I make a face. "First of all, ew. Not at the table. Second of all, _ew_. Not in front of Mom and Dad."

"Well, I'm just saying, he looks rather comfortable walking around without a shirt on," Sierra pokes at me. Seriously, she loves being annoying, and I hate her for it.

"We've lived together for a year and a half. You're delusional in thinking he hasn't _showered_ since then," I say with a roll of my eyes. She's fishing, but I'm not going to give any details, especially not in front of Mom and Dad.

"This conversation is finished," Dad says, standing up and taking his plate to the sink. "It can be continued when I'm dead, all right?" He leans in and gives Sierra a kiss on the side of the head. "How'd you sleep, baby?" he asks her.

"Awesome," Sierra says through a mouth of sticky pancakes. "I watched two episodes of CSI: New York last night. The chick in the beginning of the first one had her hands and feet chopped off, and some random lady from a Chinese restaurant found them on the sidewalk. It was hilarious."

"Lovely," I mutter. "Just what I want to talk about while I eat breakfast."

"Then in the second one, this man found a woman who had been chopped and put inside a cooler that he was going to use for a barbeque, and they got switched at the grocery store. And—"

"Sierra Kimberly, not another word," Mom says sternly. "You can talk about that later when there's no food on the table."

"Fine. Where's the boy-toy anyway, J?" Sierra asks me.

"He's sleeping. He didn't get any last night." I hear her snort and smack her upside the head. "Dad said stop it, you sicko."

"Well, he better wake up soon," Sierra says and swallows a bite of her food. "Because I want to talk to him."

"Sierra, if you wake him up, I'll never forgive you," I tell her menacingly.

"What if Vixen and Coop go wake him up?" she asks innocently. The dogs are sitting under the table. I feel Cooper's head drop in my lap when he hears his name.

"Then I'll take them to the vet and have them put down," I say. "Leave him alone, Sierra. I mean it."

"Jeez, touchy," Sierra says through a mouthful of pancakes.

"Eat your breakfast. I'm going to go shower."

**LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES**

"I can't reach that far, Jess!"

"Sam, you're six and a half feet tall."

"I'm telling you: I cannot physically do that with my body!"

Game nights with my family get really competitive. It comes with raising one soccer player and cheerleader, one competitive snowboarder, and me. I may not be into athletics other than taking a job around the park, but I have a competitive streak in me that could scare a person out of their wits. I hate to lose. Tonight, the whole family is back together for a game of Twister, and I lost miserably in the first few spins. Weak arms, what can I say?

So now, I have to win vicariously through my boyfriend. He and Melissa— who is an obsessive yoga girl— are the last two left. And I have to admit, this night is going pretty smoothly. Tommy hasn't said anything yet that pissed me off, nor has he tried interrogating Sam. Sam doesn't seem to be mad at me anymore, and he looks pretty well rested. The only thing that would make this night better is if Sam won Twister.

"Okay, I got it," Sam says with a hearty laugh, slapping his right hand on a green spot just next to Melissa's left foot. He's crouched like a table, his stomach like the tabletop, a move I don't even think I can make for very long without collapsing. Sam is just full of surprises.

"Melissa," my mother says, looking at the spinner. "Left foot yellow."

Melissa picks her head up and looks at the mat. "Jessica, you can't get mad at me," she says, realizing that she has to reach her leg all the way under my boyfriend's back. "You're the one who made me play."

"Admit it," I say with a laugh as she stretches. "You don't mind looking at my boyfriend's ass."

"Ha ha, Jessica," Tommy says sarcastically as he bounces Valerie on his knee. She just giggles out loud as her mother contorts her body under Sam's. "You're funny."

"Go Mommy!" Valerie shouts.

Luckily for Sam, whose face has gone bright pink after I mention his ass in front of my family, and for Melissa, whose husband looks like he wants to stab Sam through the chest (more than usual, anyway) her next move allows her to pull out from under him. She and Sam are now on opposite ends of the board.

"I don't think I can last much longer," Melissa says, shaking her hair out of her face.

"Want to call it a tie?" Sam asks her, craning his neck around to look at my sister-in-law.

"No!" Momma, Daddy, Valerie, and I all yell at the same time.

"Don't give up now!" I exclaim.

"But we're tired, Jess!" Sam laughs to me.

Tommy whispers into Valerie's ear, and the little girl's face lights up. She smiles broadly and jumps off her father's lap, scrambling excitedly onto the Twister board. "Val—," I start, but it's too late. She clambers onto the coffee table and sits right onto Sam's exposed stomach. He starts to falter, laughing loudly.

"Valerie, I don't think I can hold you very long," he says, wincing as he leans hard onto his wrist. Valerie just giggles, kicking her feet. She's quite enjoying this. I smile smugly over at my brother. He thought that Valerie would make him fall, but it looks like my boyfriend proved him wrong once again. Tommy doesn't look so happy about this.

Suddenly, Melissa falls to the ground in a heap, hand over her stomach, breathing heavily. "I lose!" she exclaims. "I couldn't stay up anymore!" She wiggles out from under Sam and leans up against the coffee table that we had pushed aside to make room for the Twister board.

"Funny. Sounds like something Tommy would say," Sierra quips quietly. I'm the only one who hears it, and I have to bite my lip not to laugh. It's disgusting, yeah, but it's also pretty hilarious. If Tommy heard it, his face would be as red as a tomato.

Finally, Sam plops down, careful to avoid landing on any part of my niece as Valerie squeals with delight. She stays sitting on his stomach while he takes a deep breath and turns his head towards mine. "Did I make you proud?" he asks me with a white smile.

"Very," I say, walking over and picking up my niece. "Did you have fun?" I ask, tickling her stomach.

"Are you okay?" Tommy asks, reaching out and taking the girl from my arms. "Did you get hurt?"

"Get hurt when?" Sierra asks with a roll of her eyes. "We're all standing right here."

"Well, Sam practically crushed her when he fell down," he says, sending a hard glare at Sam while he sits up on the Twister mat.

"You're kidding, right?" I ask in disbelief when Sam casts a look at the ground in embarrassment. "Seriously? You were the one who told Valerie to go sit on him in the first place! Besides, you saw when Sam fell over! He didn't touch her!"

"Jess, it's fine," Sam says quietly.

"No, it's not _fine_," I say. "Valerie, did Sam hurt you?"

Sensing the tension in the room, the little girl just stuffs a finger in her mouth and shakes her head. Tommy is still glaring at Sam while he gets himself off the floor and offers out a hand to Melissa. Tommy steps between his wife and my boyfriend and offers out the hand that's not holding his daughter.

"Tommy, you're being awfully rude," Melissa murmurs to him while she sends a guilty look to Sam over Tommy's shoulder. Sam just shrugs it off.

"He's fine, really," he says. All of a sudden, there is a ringing from over on the couch. We all turn to look at Sam's hoodie as the fabric lights up, Sam's phone buzzing and singing inside the front pocket. He reaches over and grabs out the phone. After checking the Caller ID, his eyes widen a bit, and he looks guiltily up at my family. "Would you excuse me for one minute?" he asks. "I have to take this call."

"Of course, sweetheart," Momma says with a kind smile. Dad, who is being unusually quiet, gives Sam a nod, and my boyfriend picks up his phone and exits the house, going on the back porch and pacing back and forth.

"Tommy, knock it off, okay?" I snap at him. "Just leave him alone. You're being so rude!"

"She's right, honey," Momma says. "That wasn't very nice back there."

"Nice? _Nice_?" Tommy asks incredulously. "He could've broken our daughter's ankle! Does no one care about that?"

"If he could've broken Valerie's ankle, don't you think I would be upset also?" Melissa asks rationally. "Come on, Tommy, I know that he's dating your little sister, but there's no need to be so mean to him."

"Seriously, Tom," Sierra says. "He's family. You're going to be stuck with him for a long time, so you might as well start off on a better foot."

"He's _not_ family," Tommy yells. "He's just some random fling that Jess brought home from college. That's it. Since when does that make him _family_?"

"He may not be related to us, son, but he is a guest in our house—," Dad starts.

"How can you even _say_ that?" I shout. I can see that Valerie is upset by all of this. Her eyes are squeezed tightly together, and she has her hands pressed to her ears. I feel bad. It's not her fault that her father is such a douche bag. "I _love_ him, Tommy, and I don't know what sort of vendetta you have against him—"

"Does no one else see through this guy?" Tommy asks with a laugh, handing Valerie into Melissa's outstretched arms. Mel leaves the room, muttering quietly to her daughter. "He's lying to us!"

"Oh, bull," Sierra says with an eye roll. "Lying about what?"

Tommy is about to answer when he notices something behind me. Sam is standing awkwardly in the doorway, fiddling with his phone nervously. "I, uh, my phone died," he says uncomfortably. "I'm just going to, uh, I'm going to charge it if you don't mind. I have a phone call I need to make."

"To who, Sammy? What's so important that you need to interrupt our game?" Tommy asks.

Sam opens his mouth to say something and shuts it, looking at me desperately for help.

"Don't answer that, Sam," I tell him, glowering at my brother. "Come on, I'll help you find your charger."

He knows where his charger is: it's hooked into the wall by the bedside table like it was last night; but I want to talk to him without the interruption of my incredibly impolite brother. I cross the room and take his hand, guiding him out of the living room and up the stairs. He says nothing, even after we get into our room, and I've shut the door securely behind us.

Sam crosses the room and plugs his phone in. After he finishes, he doesn't turn back to look at me. I cross my arms in front of my chest and lean awkwardly up against the dresser. Biting my lip, I ask, "How much did you hear?"

"All of it."

"Sam, I'm sorry," I say quietly, approaching him from behind. He doesn't turn to meet me, so I know he's upset. "I don't know what's gotten in to Tommy. He doesn't mean it. He doesn't." I touch Sam's shoulder, and he flinches, turning around and looking at me with hurt shining in his eyes.

"It's okay," he says. "I can't expect everyone to like me."

"Stop that," I demand. "You've done nothing for him not to like you. He _does _like you, Sam, it's just that he's not ready to."

"It's a protective big brother thing, I get it," Sam says. "I have one too."

I raise an eyebrow at him. "Dean scared away your girlfriends?"

Sam knits his brow in confused. "No, he scared away my boyfriends." He cracks a smile, and so do I, and in spite of the fact that we both feel like crap, we start laughing. "Actually, he scared off bullies, to be honest. I didn't mind it, but it also meant that he scared off any potential friends I could make too."

"Bullies?" I ask. "You were _bullied_? I have a hard time believing that."

"New kid in school," Sam says with a shrug. "I mean, at least ten or fifteen times a year new kid in school. Everyone wants to pick on fresh meat."

"God, how large were those kids who picked on you?" I ask, incredulous. "I don't know about you, but I would be terrified to pick on a kid your size."

"Actually, I didn't start growing until sophomore year," Sam says with a laugh. "I was the shortest kid in my class in freshman year, at all eleven schools I went to that year. So after that, Dean just tightened the reins, especially because he wasn't in high school to watch me anymore."

"That must've sucked," I say.

Sam shrugs. "I always had Dean. I wouldn't have stayed long enough to be good friends with anyone anyway." I nod, though it still seems unfair. Why couldn't Sam get one good break? I got plenty in my life. I would give any of those up so I could give one to him.

"So you're not upset?" I ask after a moment of silence.

He sighs and shakes his head. "How can I be, when you give me that look?" He reaches his arms out. "Come here," he says with a laugh. I walk into his embrace and sigh happily. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be: with Sam, happy, tucked safely in his arms. It's just my brother that I really need to convince.

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**Author's Note: **You know the drill. Anything that you think about it? Anything you want to suggest? Criticize? Like? Let me know!


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: My exams are OVER! I passed all of them (though verdict is still out on chemistry...) so thanks for the good wishes! Here's the next chapter— a happy summer wish from me. The problem with exams is that they've unfortunately broken my muse. I hope I can find it again...**

**

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Chapter 6  
**

It's eleven o' clock when there's a tap on my door. I turn my head to see Sam fast asleep next to me, mouth slightly open, his fingers curled into mine. I have my copy of _To Kill A Mockingbird_ balanced awkwardly on my lap, trying to flip the pages and keeping the bind from snapping shut with only one hand.

"Coming," I whisper-shout to the door even though I know no one can hear me. I clamber as quickly as I can out of bed, trying hard not to jar Sam. I know that he took a pretty long nap, but he still has plenty of sleep to catch up on. I look over my shoulder in time to see his hand that was holding mine grasp the air tightly. His lip twitches, and I can tell that he is unnerved by my absence.

I open the door and poke my head out the crack, smile fading as I realize who is in the hallway. "What do you want?" I sneer quietly. What he said to Sam during the Twister game still really makes me angry, but nothing makes me as mad as the fact that my boyfriend _heard_ Tommy say that Sam wasn't part of the family. While Sam is trying hard not to show it, I can tell that it upsets him.

"Can we talk?" Tommy asks, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking at the ground, ashamed. Good. He should be ashamed. He's a dick.

"Why?"

"Just… because," he says. "Please, Jess? It will only take a minute."

I sigh and give in, holding up a finger at my big brother. "Give me a second to get some clothes on." Sure, I'm wearing underwear and a tee shirt, but it's not like I want to walk around like that in front of my brother. Besides, I really like the look on his face when I say that, and he starts to imagine what I could be doing right now with my clothes off.

I tip toe around the room and wince as I step on a creaky floorboard. I look over to the bed as Sam turns over in his sleep. Not wanting to risk waking him up, I grab the first item of clothing that I find: one of Sam's flannel button downs that he loves so much. I pull it on and roll up the sleeves, quickly slipping buttons in holes that probably don't belong to them. I tug my hair into a disastrous bun on top of my head, and I head out into the hallway, quietly clicking the door shut behind me.

"What do you want, Tommy?" I ask him, crossing my arms in front of my chest and shivering in the cold. My bed was much warmer. So was Sam.

"I wanted to apologize for my behavior tonight," he says.

"Your words or Mom and Dad's?" I ask with an eye roll.

"Mine," he tells me. "Mom and Dad went to bed right after Melissa left with Valerie. I've been downstairs by myself, feeling like crap about the whole thing."

"Somehow I don't feel very sorry for you, Tom," I say unsympathetically.

He winces. "I know I deserved that, it's just… I don't trust him, Jess."

"_Why_?" I implore, exasperated. "Why not? What has he done wrong?"

"I just have a bad feeling about him is all," Tommy says stiffly.

"If there was something off with him, don't you think that, in the past three years, I would've figured something out?" I ask him.

"Just like you did with Clay?" Tommy asks a bit acidly.

My blood runs cold, and I look at the ground, avoiding all eye contact with my brother. "That was different."

"So you're just going to assume that Sam isn't going to do anything wrong? Ever?" Tommy asks. "You said so yourself that he doesn't tell you much about himself. What is he hiding from you? I thought after Clay you would know better. You're smarter than that!"

"So what?" I snap at him, a little louder than I intend. Why can't I be blind this time? Why can't I just pretend that I don't care that he doesn't talk about his family and that I don't care that I don't know what he did as a kid or if he had a pet dog when he was little? "Sam is good to me, Tommy. He's sweet, and he… he loves me. And I love him. Why can't that be enough for you?"

"Because the last time that was enough for me, you got hurt," Tommy says. "And I can't let that happen again. I just can't. When you called me from that bus station in San Francisco, when I came and picked you up, Jess… that nearly killed me. I'm your big brother. I'm supposed to protect you from guys like that."

"Clay and Sam aren't the same people, Tommy," I try to convince him. He's not budging.

"I'm not taking that chance. I want this guy's story, Jessie," he tells me, mouth set in a straight line. "I'm not going to let him take advantage of you. I'm not going to let him get away like I did with Clay."

"He's not going to hurt me."

"How do you know that?" Tommy seems to be begging me to understand at this point, but I don't want to listen. I'm happy with Sam. I don't want Tommy to interfere and mess that all up.

"Because I _do_, Tommy!" I snap. I'm tired of being jaded. I'm tired of being skeptical and not trusting any of the guys I meet. It's high time that I trust someone who will trust me back. And maybe Sam doesn't share much, but he does trust me, and he does love me. He does. Otherwise he wouldn't still be here. "I just do."

We're quiet and awkward as we shuffle around each other and try to find the right words to say. Tommy's mouth opens and closes a few times before he finally finds the courage to speak. "Can you just answer me one thing without totally flipping out on me?" he asks.

"What?"

"Has he hurt you?" he asks. "I mean, you'd tell me if he hurt you, right? You wouldn't just let him do that to you like you did last time?"

"Tommy, of course I wouldn't," I tell him. "I learned my lesson."

"Did you?" he asks. We sit in silence for a moment. "Because it seems to me like you're falling back into that same old pattern."

"There is no _pattern_," I say heatedly, crossing my arms over my chest angrily. "There were signs with Clay. I just chose to ignore them because I was young and stupid. But I'm not being stupid this time, Tommy. You just have to trust me." Because of Clay, I became the independent person I am. I would never let anyone walk all over me again. And I know that Sam would never try. That's why we've been dating for three years.

"I trust _you_," Tommy points out. "I don't trust him. And you can't blame me. Clay could've killed you."

"I think you're taking this a bit too far, Tommy," I say uneasily, lowering my voice. The last thing I need is for Sam to wake up and hear this conversation. Because as far as I know, Sam knows nothing about Clay Walker.

Clay and I dated our junior and senior year of high school. He was a big time basketball player, loved to party, and had a penchant for drinking himself into a stupor after a victory in a sports game. But I loved him. Well, I thought I did. He was sweet to me. He bought me flowers on my birthday. He held the door open for me when we walked into school together. He had no problem holding my hand out in public. But he was jealous. Very jealous. I know that I can be jealous, but it was nothing compared to Clay. He would literally punch the boys I was talking to if he thought they were giving me the wrong look. One time, he punched my cousin square in the face. Clay was about one fry short of a Happy Meal, but I pretended not to notice. As a teenager in California, it was hard to find a boyfriend who wasn't going to cheat on you with the next Malibu Barbie that walked along. So I fell into that same old cycle that a lot of girls fell into at my age. I let him walk all over me. I let him lash out at me when he was drunk. I would pretend that when I got home crying, it was because one of my girlfriends and I got in a fight. I let him take over my life, instead of making my own.

I think the only reason he got away with all of it was because he really knew how to sweet talk my family. He had them wrapped around his little finger, just like I was. I seemed happy, so there was no reason to think otherwise. But by senior year, Clay started to get too rough for me to handle. I acted like it didn't bother me. I acted like it didn't hurt when he gripped my arm and tugged me through gaggles of people at parties, but I really felt like he was going to pull my arm right out of its socket. And then one day, he decided to drive me out to San Francisco. He told me he had a whole romantic date planned for our two-year anniversary. I was so excited, and Mom and Dad could see that, so they let me go with the promise that I would check in when we were driving home.

And when we got to San Francisco, Clay pulled into an abandoned bus stop and asked me to marry him. As if that wasn't enough of a shock, he asked me to elope and run off with him. He said that he thought that college would be holding him back, and he wanted to go backpacking across Europe with me. Start our own family. I was… terrified, actually. I had a partial scholarship to Stanford. I loved my family. I didn't want to run out on them. And so I made the hardest decision of my life, and I told him no.

And Clay went a bit psycho.

Well, more than a bit. He went batshit crazy and dragged me out of the car by my wrists and threw me to the ground. I couldn't exactly tell you how the whole thing went down, but he ended up breaking my ankle and cracking one of my ribs and giving me a nice shiner under my left eye. Then he spat at me, called me a whore, and drove off without me. Which then led me, reduced to a sobbing, sniffling mess, to call my big brother and beg him to come and get me.

So do I understand why Tommy feels the need to be protective? Yes, I do. But I don't understand why he needs to be such an asshole.

"Whatever, Jess," Tommy says, shaking his head. "I just… I know I've been a bit harsh to Sam—"

I snort and cut him off. "A _bit_? You've been at his throat since he got here!"

"But I have a reason!" Tommy defends himself.

"Really? You know, I'm sure that Melissa had an ass of a boyfriend before she met you," I say. Actually, she didn't. Tommy was the only boy she ever dated, but I'm not going to let Tommy correct me. "Or at least one of her sisters did." She had four of them, after all. "And her parents loved you. Her siblings were great to you. You practically lived at their house for your whole junior year summer."

"What's your point?" Tommy asks a bit tersely.

"My point is that Sam wants to feel that same way," I tell him gently. "He just wants you to like him. So could you try? Could you give him an actual chance?"

"Jess, I just don't trust him. I'm sorry."

"Could you try?" I ask heatedly.

"Well, maybe," he says uneasily. "I'll let you get back to sleep, I guess. Good night, Jessie." He kisses me on the forehead. "I really am sorry about the way I acted tonight."

"It's fine," I say, stepping backwards towards my door. "Now go home and spend some time with your wife. I think she misses you considering you've been lurking around here for the past two days."

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**Author's Note: **Short and sweet, but I wanted this section out! Thanks for the reviews and support, guys! I hope I get some more!**  


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t**


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **I would have thought that with summer I would update this a lot more. As it is, I seem to be busier now than I was during school. I apologize for the wait!

**Chapter 7**

It's two o' clock by my cell phone clock when I wake up again. Sam's phone is buzzing on the side table beside him, and he's still fast asleep, face buried deep into his pillow. Groaning, I roll over and shake his shoulder. "Sam," I mutter, still blinking sleepiness from my eyes. "Sam, your—" Then I stop shaking him.

I know this is bad of me. I know that I deserve Bad Girlfriend of the Year award, but I can't stop myself as I reach over Sam's body and grab the buzzing phone. I can't help it as I stuff my feet into my Uggs. I have no control over my body when I grab Sam's jacket and slip outside the balcony doors. And I can't stop the disappointment that wells in my chest when I look down at his cell phone and realize that it's stopped ringing.

A few moments later, I jump in surprise as the cell comes to life in my hands. I fiddle with the phone and look at the screen: Dean. Suddenly nervous, I stamp the talk button and slowly put the device to my ear. Before I can even stammer out my greeting, a voice fills my ear.

"Sammy, this is stupid!" a deep, gravelly voice that I assume to be Dean's shouts through the receiver. "Dad is still in the hospital, and I need your help! Would you stop being so damn stubborn and come help me, man?"

I gasp out loud and pull the phone away from my face, staring at the dull light of the screen in horror. And then I realize my mistake. Dean seems to notice right away that Sam is not the person on the other line. Even though the phone is an arm's length away, I can hear the worry and the anger in his voice clearly from where I'm standing.

"Who is this?" Dean demands. "And what have you done with my brother?"

"I-I…" I stumble over my words. Clearing my throat, I say in a high-pitched voice quiet unlike my own, "This… I haven't done anything with Sam." I'm such a bumbling mess that I can hardly remember my own name.

"You better hope you didn't," Dean growls. "Because if you hurt him, I swear to God—"

"This is Jessica!" I blurt before I can stop myself. We sit in silence for a moment.

"Jessica?" Dean asks, his voice a mixture of shock and confusion. "Sam's girlfriend?"

"Yeah," I say breathlessly. "Yeah, I… He wasn't waking up, and his phone was ringing…"

"Oh, well, sorry," Dean says brusquely. "Didn't mean to disturb you. Tell him I called, would you?"

"Wait!" I exclaim. There is a silence, but I can still hear Dean's breath on the other line. "What do you mean your dad's in the hospital?"

"No offense, sweetheart, but it's kind of personal," he tells me.

"I'm Sam's _girlfriend_," I remind Dean.

"Yeah, well, if he hasn't told you already, I'm not telling you anything either," Dean says.

"But… is he okay? Your dad, I mean?" I ask, biting my lip. I'm genuinely concerned. I am. I may not like John Winchester on principle of everything that Sam's told me about him, but that doesn't mean that I want him in a hospital.

"…Tell Sam I called, all right?" And he hangs up.

Biting my lip, I turn off Sam's phone and wait, arms crossed over my chest, knees shaking, in the bitter cold. I look out into the mountains, and for what seems to be the first time in my life, I don't see anything when I look out. This is what I guessed. I'm supposed to be ready for this.

I hate being right.

**LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES**

With every snap, crack, and stumble, I wince even more. I have stepped on a million and twelve rocks and twigs and slipped almost onto my ass more times than I can count, and I'm getting sick of it. I hate hiking. I always have. I can ski if you want me to, and I can snowboard. I can do a lot of active, sporty things (not that I really care to), but hiking up a steep hill made of rock with no railings to stop me if I trip over my shoelaces? Not my thing.

"Jess, you look like you're about to wet yourself," Sam says with a laugh, coming up behind me with fingers hitched into the straps of his backpack. I know that Tommy loaded it with a bunch of completely unnecessary crap before we left, just to be annoying, but since Sam once bench-pressed my body weight, he hasn't noticed a single thing. Which seems to be pissing Tommy off. He wanted to make fun of Sam when he started complaining about the weight of his bag.

"Not a heights person, I guess," I say, scooting towards him and away from the side of the mountain.

We're _hiking_. I'll say it again: I hate hiking. Even growing up in the mountains, I hate hiking. It's high in the air and dangerous, and I tend to be klutzy when I'm nervous. And I'm nervous. But I think that has more to do with the fact that it's me, Melissa, Tommy, and Sam up on top of a very high mountain with no one else around. If Tommy wants to dump Sam off the edge, no one else is going to be here to witness it.

Sam hooks an arm around my shoulder and pulls me around him, to the side away from the edge. He squeezes me close. "You're not going to fall."

"Easy for you to say," I say. So far, Sam has been the best hiker out of all of us. "Were you in a hiking league when you were a kid or something?" I ask bitterly, side-stepping an icy rock.

"Is that even a real thing?" Sam asks.

"You're a smartass," I say, laughing.

"Though Jessica makes a valid point, Sammy," Tommy says, coming up from behind us. I feel Sam's hand clench at the sound of his voice. I look up at him, but he's looking at a point in the distance, eyes hard and mouth set in a solid line. "You're quite the hiker. Have you done it before?"

"Yeah, I have," Sam says. "In the Appalachians and the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada range, I think. I was younger, but it's not really something you can forget how to do. It's just walking."

"Well, you seem to be the fittest one out here," Tommy says, catching up and standing on Sam's opposite side.

"Yeah, well, I had a lot of training when I was younger," Sam says, refusing to look Tommy in the eye. He's pissed off. I can tell.

"Training for what?" Tommy asks. This time, instead of sounding like a pesky older brother, he just sounds curious.

"My dad was in the army," Sam says, letting go of my shoulder and stuffing his hands in his pockets. "A corporal. He wanted my brother and me to know how to protect ourselves."

"You have a brother?" Melissa asks, speaking for the first time in a long time. She's so quiet. Sometimes I wonder how she found a guy like Tommy to marry. Or really, how Tommy found a woman like Melissa to marry.

"Yeah, an older brother," Sam says.

"What's his name?" Melissa asks.

"Dean. He's four years older than me."

"Did he go to Stanford also?"

"No, he didn't go to college," Sam says stoically, head back in the conversation. "My dad didn't really want us going."

"So why'd you go?" Tommy asks. Really, even after the talk Tommy and I had the other night, he's still prying. I wish _something_, anything would get through my brother's thick skull.

"I wanted to," Sam answers with a shrug. He's not trying to be rude. It's just that that was why he came to Stanford: he wanted to.

"You'll make a pretty good lawyer then, won't you?" Melissa asks with a laugh. "Being able to strong arm an army man into what you want? My grandpa was sergeant, and it was near impossible to crack him."

Sam just laughs and says nothing.

"Why so modest, Sammy?" Tommy asks. Sam's hands clench again. "Don't you think you'll be a good lawyer?"

"I guess. It's not really for me to say though," Sam answers.

"Oh, come on. Everyone deserves some gloating room," Tommy says, giving Sam a mock punch on the arm as we turn up a wooded path.

"What about you, Tom?" Sam asks, quickly changing the subject. "D'you like the medical business?"

"Sure," Tommy says, always ready to talk about himself. "It's hard work, but someone has to do it."

"So you think you're a great surgeon?" Sam asks.

"You'd probably have to ask my patients that." A few seconds later, Tommy has a shocked look on his face while Sam just smiles slightly. I grin like an idiot. I love it when people show my brother up. No one deserves humiliation more than he does.

We walk in a peaceful silence for a while, snow and dry leaves and tiny twigs crunch and snap underfoot. We hear the wind whistling through the barren trees, the rustle of pine tree branches as the air whips at them, the sounds of nature uninterrupted.

"So what's up?" Tommy disrupts the beauty. "What're you doing with my sister?"

"Tommy!" Melissa and I exclaim in unison, my voice angry, hers shocked.

"What?" Sam asks, eyebrows knit in an angry confusion.

"Well, I'm just saying, she's a good looking girl with loaded parents. Is that what you're after?" Tommy snaps.

"Tommy, stop it!" I shout at him. Sam looks appalled and livid. "Leave him alone!" I'm humiliated. I know that Tommy has reason to worry about me. My track record with men in high school was terrible. That doesn't mean that he has a right to attack Sam like this. I put a hand on Sam's arm, trying to see if he will calm down enough to look at me. He doesn't. "Sam…" I start, trying to get his attention as he glares at my brother.

"No, Jess, let Sammy answer this one," Tommy asks, squaring himself up to my monstrous boyfriend. Tommy has guts, I have to give him that. Not that my brother is a small man, but most men compared to Sam are pretty small. Not to mention that I don't think Tommy has worked out a day in his life, and I'm sure that Sam could knock all my brother's teeth out in one punch if he really wanted to. Part of me should be proud of my older brother for standing up for me despite the fact that he could get creamed, but it's too little too late at this point. He should have done this in high school, not when I finally found the right guy.

"First of all," Sam says, stepping out of my grip and sizing down my brother, standing right in front of him so close that I can see the clouds of their breath smacking each other in the face. "_Don't _call me Sammy."

"What's the matter, Sammy? Don't like your nickname?" Tommy sneers.

"Tommy!" What has gotten into my brother? He's never this cruel to anyone, no matter how much he hates them.

"You know, Tommy, I'm willing to put up with a lot for Jessica, I really am," Sam says heatedly. "But I've had it. What do you want from me? What can I do to show you that I'm not the bad guy here?"

"Sam, you don't have to do anything," Melissa says quietly from beside me, watching hopelessly as her hotheaded husband and my pissed off boyfriend square off and get ready to beat each other senseless. I think she knows that Sam will win too. "Tom is being irrational—"

"No, Melissa, I'm _not _being irrational!" Tommy snaps. "Jess comes out of a bad relationship, and all of a sudden _this _Prince Charming shows up? And what? He expects nothing out of that? You're full of shit, man! You haven't told us one honest thing since you got here, have you?"

"What are you _talking _about?" Sam asks, exasperated. "I haven't _lied _to you—"

"Bullshit! Bull_shit_, Sam!" Tommy yells. "I'm not an idiot. When I asked you about those scars on your arms, you told me they were from some kids, but I've seen a lot of acts of random violence in the ER, and I know for a _fact _that none of them end up looking like whatever the hell you have."

"Tommy, nose out of Sam's business!" I say, a bit woozy. I step in between the boys and place a hand on each of their chests, shoving them apart. Sam lied about that? There's no way. That's the story that he told _me _two years ago. He wouldn't have lied for that long. "Back off. I mean it. _Back off_," I snap at both the men. They don't take their eyes off each other, but Sam takes a step back. Tommy doesn't move. "What the hell is your _problem_?" I bark.

"My problem is that this guy has already lied to me once," Tommy shouts, stabbing a finger at Sam. "What else has he lied about?"

"Nothing! Okay? I haven't lied about anything!" Sam yells.

"I'm telling you: there is no way that the scars would come out that badly," Tommy tells me rationally, lowering his voice and looking right into my eyes. He's begging me to see his logic. I can tell, just by one glance into his baby blues that he has good intentions. He just wants to make sure I'm making the right decision. "They'd be clean. And if a doctor checked them out, there would hardly be a scar left, not unless those kids took a chunk out of his arm. And if they did that, he probably would be dead right now from the amount of blood loss. Medically, his story doesn't fit."

Reluctantly, I look back to my boyfriend. "Sam… is that true?" I ask him quietly, ashamed. I know that I should have more trust in my boyfriend, but Tommy is being logical, medical. He has facts. I'm going off blind faith with Sam, and that's not fair to me. If he's been lying this whole time, Tommy's right: what else has he been lying about?

Sam bites his lip and looks me right in the eye. He can tell he's been backed into a corner. "Fine," he snaps. "You want to know what really happened?" I bite my lip and nod my head, though now I'm really not sure I want to know. From the tone of Sam's voice, I can tell it's nothing good. But do I want to know just how bad? God, why couldn't I just stay ignorant? Tommy puts an arm around my shoulder and glares hard at Sam. I shrug away and wait. "I was seventeen, and I told my dad I got a full ride into Stanford, that I was going to school the next fall." Sam pauses and blinks a bit. I can see the pain on his face, and all I want to do is tell him to stop, that I don't want to know. But I've created this monster, and I have to deal with the damage he creates. Sam's voice is thin when he speaks up again. "And he took me by my shoulders and chucked me through the screen glass door."

Tommy and I stand beside each other in shocked silence. We had not been expecting something like that. I open my mouth to say something, to apologize for making him bring it up again, but Tommy speaks first.

"So… what? He let you bleed to death on the front porch?" he asks. I want nothing more than to punch my brother's lights out, but I'm paralyzed, rooted to the ground and staring open-mouthed at my boyfriend. After three years, I find out that my speculations were right, that John Winchester had been more than a depressed drunk. He had been abusive also. And knowing that, knowing that I was right, has never brought me more horror before.

"My brother didn't want to take me to the hospital because my dad would probably go into custody with the CPS, so he stitched me up all he could on the living room floor with a sewing needle and half a bottle of whiskey." He glares at me so icily that I shiver. "That what you wanted?"

"Why'd you lie in the first place?" Tommy asks after a brief moment of silence.

Sam laughs that same bitter laugh I heard him use on the phone the other night. "Would _you _want to tell anyone that, Tom?" he snaps.

"I wouldn't want to lie to people," Tommy says defiantly.

"Well, why don't I toss you through your front door and see who you'd want to go talk to?" Sam offers menacingly, stepping closer.

"Hey, hey, hey, calm down," I say, speaking finally as I reach up to still my boyfriend and brother who try to step up to each other again.

"You know what, Jess, _you_ calm down!" Sam snaps, making me step back in disbelief. He never gets this mad at me. "I'm sick of this!"

"You were caught _lying_, and that's why you're sick of it," Tommy says smugly.

"No, it's because I know that whatever I do won't be good enough for you," Sam says. "And notice I'm not prying into your personal life. Or Jess's. Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because I'm not going to let you take advantage of my sister!"

"Who says I'm taking advantage of her?" Sam yells. "Seriously, if I just wanted to sleep with her and run, wouldn't I have run a long time ago? It's been _three years_, and we haven't had a single problem until I came here and met _you_."

He turns on his heel and starts to stride away. I glare at Tommy and start to walk towards my boyfriend.

"There's still a hole in your story, Sam," Tommy says to Sam.

Sam stops and turns on his heel to look my brother in the face. Sam says nothing.

"When all this was going on, where was your mom? Why wasn't she doing anything about it?"

I'm too mad to even open my mouth. If there's one thing that Sam doesn't ever want to talk about, it's his mother. The only things I know about her are her name and that she died in a house fire. He told me once, and I've never forgotten. I don't think I ever will.

Sam doesn't turn around. He goes rigid, and for a moment, I think he's going to wheel around and beat the crap out of my brother. Instead, he storms away without a word, knocking a low branch out of his vision and leaving a trail of muddy boot prints in the snow. I wheel around and glare hard at Tommy. "Thanks, Tommy," I snap.

"Jessica—"

But I'm already off after Sam who has covered a considerable amount of ground with his long legs. I'm ducking around tree limbs and sliding all over the place, calling out his name. He doesn't hear me and plows on. "Sam, wait!" I yell, grabbing onto a stone ledge before I topple onto my ass. "Just wait a second, all right?"

He spins around, fire in his eyes and voice. "Why? So your brother can interrogate me again?"

"No," I say quietly, casting a guilty look at the ground. "He's not here. It's just me." Sam huffs in annoyance, turning his head away and squinting off into the distance, just so he doesn't have to look me in the eyes. I take timid steps forward. "Can we talk about it for a second?"

"I just did more talking than I ever wanted to do, thanks," he spits bitterly.

"I'm sorry, Sam," I apologize. "I really am. I had no idea that he would do that."

"So why didn't you back me up, Jessica? Why didn't you just tell him to stop?" Sam snaps.

Always defensive as I am, I feel like he's being a bit unfair. Sure, I pushed him to tell me something he didn't want to tell me; but if he had told the truth originally, I wouldn't have had to push him. "Why did you lie to me in the first place?" I snap back.

"Because I didn't want to talk about it!" Sam shouts. "I was thrown through a glass door by my own father! That's not something I go around boasting about." He glares hard at me. "That's something you don't understand."

My eyes narrow. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think?" We sit in silence for a moment. "Jess, you have an amazing family. You have parents who love and support you and siblings who care about you. I didn't have that. I wasn't encouraged when I was younger. I wasn't hugged or pat on the back. I got a full ride to _Stanford, _Jess. _Stanford_. And instead of congratulating me, my dad _threw me out a glass door._ Why would I want to tell you that?"

"Because I'm your girlfriend!" I exclaim. "It's not like I'd judge you for what your dad did."

"No, but you'd judge my dad, wouldn't you?" Sam asks. "I know how much you hate him. I know what you say about him if our friends ask, and I'm not around."

"Your dad was an asshole, Sam! You said so yourself. What do you want me to say about him?" I snap.

"It's not your place to judge him, Jess!" he retaliates. "He's _my _dad! _I _was the one who had to deal with him. I don't want you going around and bad mouthing him. If I wanted people to know, I would've _told _them, all right?"

"You could've at least told me," I murmur at the ground. My cheeks are hot despite the bitterly cold wind. He's right, in a way. I don't understand why he's upset about me disliking his dad, and I'll probably never know why, but it is his business. I know I should probably leave it be like that, but I can't. I can't just let him bottle it all up inside him like he is. Obviously it makes him pretty volatile.

"So you could go tell your family about it or something?"

"So I could help you," I say, hurt. I may have not defended him back with my brother, but that doesn't mean that I don't care about him anymore. I know that he's upset, but I wish he would stop treating me like this. "So we could talk about it, and you wouldn't have to be like this all the time."

"Like _what_?" Sam barks.

"Angry. Closed off. Scared," I say. There is no response. "Maybe you could tell me why you wake up yelling for people and why you spend nights without sleep. Let me help you, Sam. Let me in. I want to know. I want to. Please."

He turns away and starts down the mountain trail, cutting it dangerously close to the edge. A rock at his foot breaks off and skitters down the steep hillside. I bite my lip nervously. If Sam were to fall off the side, he'd break his neck. "Sam, please!" I beg, chasing after him. "You don't even know where you're go—"

For an instant, I feel steady, and the next, the ground crumbles below my feet, and I slip backwards. "_Sam_!" I screech, waving my arms out wildly and trying to grab hold of something nearby. I fail and start to tumble off the side. Screaming, my hands desperately scratch at the rock wall, feeling for a foothold or a ledge that I can grasp. I'm falling, and I have a strange feeling that Sam's name might be the last thing that ever came out of my mouth.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: **Well, I saw A. Tams review, and it made me feel sad. Even with a broken wrist, I managed another update for y'all. Happy summer! I know it's really short, but... I tried.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

"Jessica!" I hear Sam's deep voice as I latch myself onto the biggest ledge there is that's jutting out of the mountain's side. While it's the largest, it's by no means large, and my fingers are straining to keep hold. I feel myself slipping. I look down and start to shake, my arms not able to hold all my body weight like this.

"Sam!" I yell shrilly, my nerves choking my vocal chords. "Sam!"

"Hold on, Jess!" I hear thumping from up above.

"I'm slipping! God dammit, Sam! I'm slipping!"

"Jessica!" It's Tommy's voice this time. "Fuck! Jessie!"

"Jessica, look up!" Sam is on his stomach, his torso folded over the ledge, his arm outstretched towards me. He has taken off his coat, and there's a large gash of blood running down his arms. When I see this, I start to realize the stabbing pain in my own and look to see deep crimson spots soaking through rips in my coat sleeves. "Jess, you have to let go of the ledge and grab my hand, okay?" Sam says calmly, though I can hear a shred of panic in his voice. "Let go, Jess. Let go of the ledge."

Arms trembling, I loosen my grip. Terrified, I clench on harder than before and shake my head. "Sam, I can't," I say. I'm crying, and I don't realize it until the hot tears sting my face. "I can't let go."

"_Yes_, you can," Sam demands.

"Dammit, Jessie, do what he says!" Tommy yells from up above me.

"Jess, please," Sam begs me. "Come on. I won't let you fall. I swear. I'm not going to let you get hurt. You have to trust me, okay? Trust me."

Terrified, I reach one hand up and close my eyes tight. Stinging arms aching, I start to slip. Panicking, I open up my eyes just in time to see Sam gripping my hand with one of his large ones. I reach up and clasp my open hand to his wrist, and he pulls me up, anchoring himself to the top of the mountain with his free hand. When he pulls me off the edge, I collapse on top of him in a heap, sobbing loudly, burying my face into his chest, while he does his best to hold my shaking body in his arms.

"Jessie," Tommy says, relieved. I can hear that Melissa is crying beside him.

I feel Tommy's hand touch my shoulder, and without thinking, I yell shrilly, "_Don't touch me!_" I take a few deep breaths as he backs away. "Don't touch me." For a moment no one says anything. I don't think that I didn't want Tommy to hold me. I think it's just that I wanted Sam to hold me more.

When we get home, Tommy is silently shaking beneath the fear written on his face. Right now, though, he knows how to keep his mouth shut. I'm still shaking so hard that Sam ends up carrying me inside, shuffling sideways through the front door in order to get me inside. Mom sees us walk in and is on her feet in an instant, face ashen. "What happened?" she gasps, following as Sam brings me into the living room. He tries to set me down on the couch, but my fingers are closed so tightly around the cloth of his shirt that I'm not sure I remember how to let go. Instead of prying me away, he sits himself on the couch, laying me across his lap. I curl into his chest and tremble, eyes shut tightly. "Is she okay?"

Sam can't speak. I can feel him struggle to get the words out, and I can feel the fight inside his chest. But he doesn't say a word.

"She's fine, Mom," Melissa says quietly, though she's clutching onto Tommy just as hard as I'm holding onto Sam.

"Okay— _Roger_!" Momma yells through the house. "Roger, come in here!" I can hear Daddy thundering down the stairs. "What happened?" she asks quietly, kneeling down next to me and gently tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I flinch away and bury my face into Sam's flannel shirt, blocking out all light and pictures. And inside my head, all I can see is me falling.

"Beth… wh-what happened?" I hear Daddy ask seconds later.

"It was my fault," Sam says, voice strangled. The reverberations in his chest buzz against my cheek, and the warm sound of his voice slowly starts to calm my shaking. "We were fighting, and she-she took off after me. I didn't know—" He tapers off, and the room swims in silence. He kisses the top of my head and picks his own up to look at my family. I'm still too scared to say anything out loud.

"Melissa and I rounded the corner just in time to see her topple off the edge," Tommy finishes with a bit of venom in his voice. Mom gasps out loud, and in my mind's eye, I see her grabbing onto my dad's arm with her vice grip, eyes wide, panic stricken on her face. "Jessie grabbed a ledge, though, and Sam pulled her back up. For a minute there, I thought Sam was going to topple over the edge too."

"Sweetheart, are you hurt?" Daddy asks, his voice coming up right behind my head. He's kneeling on the ground in front of the couch, keeping a careful distance so he doesn't scare me. I want to answer him, but every time I think about that ledge rushing to my face, my throat constricts. A whimper involuntarily bubbles out of my lips.

"Her arms are pretty torn up," Sam rasps. "We did the best we could with the first-aid kit in the car, but there wasn't much we had to work with."

"I patched her up," Tommy says. "She'll be fine, Dad. She's just in shock. I think… I think we were lucky Sam was there." I can feel Sam's head twist to look at Tommy, an understanding rippling through them. A moment of peace, maybe a silent truce, and I'm shaking so hard that I can't get on my knees and praise the Lord for it.

I feel Dad put the back of his hand against my exposed cheek. I shiver deeply and bury my face deeper into Sam's shirt, pulling his coat around me tightly. He gave up his coat when we were up on that mountain, and being as freaked out as I am, I didn't tell him no. "Why don't you get her upstairs, and let her rest for now?" Dad asks Sam. I feel my boyfriend nod and slowly, awkwardly get to his feet with me cradled in his arms.

Silently, we travel upstairs, and I clutch my hands weakly around his shirt. I don't know why I'm still shaking. It's been almost forty-five minutes since I tumbled, and I still can't get control of myself. Sam is moving slowly, carefully, like he's afraid I'll break apart in his arms. When we get to our room, he somehow turns the doorknob and carries me inside. I don't realize how much I'm really shaking until he sets me on the bed by myself.

"Sam," I mutter worriedly.

He takes a deep breath. "Oh, Jess." He sits on the bed and reaches his hand out towards me, but he stops midway, dropping it into his lap and looking down, ashamed. "I am so sorry," he whispers, mortified. "I'm so sorry."

"Sam," I try to say back, but my words get caught in my throat, and my voice cracks.

"Shh," he says quietly. He leans in and gently kisses my cheek. He pulls the covers up around me and says, "Go to sleep." When I whimper again, he sighs and gently clambers in behind me. Draping his arms around my shaking frame, he shushes me quietly and rubs small circles on my arm until I drift off into sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: **FEAR NOT! I have not left you guys! I was on vacation with no internet access, and I just got super busy. My computer is getting reimaged soon, but I have the whole story backed up and a few chapters waiting for y'all. So here you go! I apologize for the wait!

**Chapter 9**

It's been two days since I took that fall. My arms are healing very nicely, and I'm okay. Scariest thing of my entire life? Yes. But I'm not going to let that ruin this trip. It took me too long to get Sam to come out here, and I'll be damned if he gets here and doesn't enjoy himself. Today, we got the house to ourselves for a few hours. Mom is at the hospital, volunteering with the pediatrics ward. Sierra is snow boarding with her friends, Dad and Tommy are working, and Melissa and Valerie are Christmas shopping. I think I'm more excited than Sam is, which is a shock. My family hasn't been too easy on him.

And another thing? He's gotten three more phone calls from his brother. For some reason, Dean won't call before two o' clock in the morning. And while I'm fine drifting back off to sleep once Sam clambers back in the bed, I know him. From the way that he smiles at me in the morning, I can tell that he hasn't slept a wink. Just last night, Sam got a call at two o' clock, and once he was back in bed, his phone went off at four o' clock. And maybe it's one of our friends. Maybe I'm reading too much into everything. But it seems unlikely. Our friends aren't dumb enough to call that late at night, no matter how wasted they might be.

So when we woke up to an empty house, I was thrilled. Quiet might be just what Sam needed to take a long nap. Quiet might be just what he needs to _talk _to me about these mysterious phone calls late at night and why they kept him up into all hours of the morning.

"Grab the eggs out of the fridge," I tell Sam while I stand on my tiptoes and stretch for the flour on the top shelf of the cabinet. Sam and I are going to try to make cookies. I always make them at Stanford, but Sam told me that he's never made cookies before. It's upsetting. Baking cookies is something that all children need to experience.

I feel his presence right behind me, and I see his hand reach above my head and grab out the flour. "This what you were looking for?" he asks, looking down at me with a grin. I take the flour and laugh.

"_That's _why I picked a guy the size of a grizzly bear," I say, shaking my head.

"Ha, ha," Sam laughs insincerely. He holds up his yellow Styrofoam carton and asks, "What do I do with this?"

"Set it on the counter by the blender. I've got the rest of the stuff out."

"So, promise me something," Sam says as he places the eggs next to the brown sugar. "If I mess everything up, you can't get mad at me."

I roll my eyes. "It's a batch of cookies, Sam. Valerie has messed up so many batches of cookies that I hardly remember the last batch that made it to the oven."

"So I'm as capable as a four year old?"

"Um, Valerie's five," I point out. "And no. You're probably less capable," I say with a smile as I start to scoop some sugar into a measuring cup. Sam laughs but doesn't say anything. He knows how to take a joke. "Hand me the three-fourths cup, please," I say, starting up the mixer. Obediently, Sam hands me the cup. "So, uh, Sam, I have a question I've been wanting to ask you," I say, pretending to be solely focused on the task at hand and pretending that my heart isn't beating four million miles a second.

"Okay," he says, sounding confused. He should be a bit confused. Whenever I have a question, I normally just ask it. For some reason, I've been too scared to ask this one.

I turn and look him right in the eyes. Blubbering for words for a moment, I just open my mouth and shut it again. Finally, I say, "The phone calls at two o' clock in the morning." He looks a bit exasperated now. "Who is that? And what do they have to say that's so important?"

He sighs. "It's no one, Jess," he tells me. "Don't worry about it."

My eyebrows knit in annoyance. "Actually, I _should _worry about it, Sam, because for all you're telling me, that could be your second girlfriend on the other line. Or your long lost brother. Hell, that could be your daughter or something, and I would have no idea."

"I don't have any children," Sam promises me. "Unless you had one of them without letting me know. And to be honest, I'm not thinking a long lost brother is possible either. And now that we've ruled out daughter, don't you think mistress is a bit far-fetched too?"

"Oh, come on, Sam, stop it!" I bark. "That's so annoying, did you know that? Do you know how-how _annoying _you are?"

He nods, unfazed. "I've been told."

"Look, I know it's Dean, Sam!" I snap. "So can you cut the bullshit and just talk to me?"

"You… How did you—?"

"I answered it," I say. "You didn't wake up, so I answered the phone, and I talked to your brother." He doesn't look guilty for not telling me anything. He doesn't look upset that I caught him in the act. He just looks pissed, and part of me is angry that I told him in the first place. The other part, though, still wants to know the truth. And that one seems to be stronger than the other. "So do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"You answered my _phone_?" Sam asks, appalled. "You're snooping into my private conversations? Aren't we supposed to _trust_ each other, Jess?"

"Yeah, we are!" I shoot right back. "But how am I supposed to trust you when I already know you've lied to me? How do I know to trust you now that I know you're hiding something from me? I'm running out of options here, Sam. Either I've got to snoop behind your back, or I've got to ask you. And since asking you isn't working so well, you're _forcing me _to go behind your back!"

"Why don't you just leave it be?" Sam asks a bit heatedly. "God, ever since we got here, Jess, all you've been doing is asking questions. Before we came to meet your family, you didn't give a rat's ass about my… family and my scars and who called me at two o' clock in the morning. Why do you let your family tell you what to question?"

"You're kidding me, right?" I ask in awe. "You think I didn't care? Of course I did! But you always just deflected my questions and turned the conversation into something about me. You're just… you're such a… such a…"

"Lawyer?" Sam offers.

"Yes! A lawyer," I shout. "A lying, manipulative, mean, bad boyfriend, lawyer!"

He waits a moment in silence and gives me a small smile. "Are you finished?"

"No, I'm not!" I yell. "For another thing, since when do you think that my family dictates what I do? 'Cause they don't! I _want _to know all about you, Sam! I do! But all you've done since we've met is shut me out. And I want to be let in, Sam. Do you know what it's like to be able to just… to _see _the wall and not be able to climb over it? Do you know what that feels like?"

"Not really. I'm tall enough to jump most walls…"

"Jesus Christ, Sam, can you be serious for one _fucking_ moment?" Now he's just doing it to piss me off. I can tell. Now he's trying to make me mad at him and pay attention to him being an ass. And that's making me lose sight of my first question.

Oh, Sammy boy, it's not going to work on me this time.

"What's wrong with your dad?" I ask quietly. His snarky attitude falters, and he looks away from me. I step closer and place a hand on his cheek, directing his gaze into mine. I lose all the fire in my voice and my eyes, and I try my hardest to be comforting. "Sam, please. Let me in. Just for a second, at least."

He sighs quietly and grabs my hand that's on his cheek. Lowering it, he bites his lip. "I just…" He's struggling. I can see it flashing in his hazel eyes. He's scared to tell me. He's upset about whatever it is. There's still a hint of anger that I pried in the first place, but that's slowly being outweighed by the uncertainty clouding his vision. "He's in the hospital," he says quietly. "He was… he was hunting, and he got hurt pretty badly."

"Is he going to be all right?" I ask quietly, gripping his hand. The mixer is droning in the background, probably beating the crap out of my brown sugar and vanilla, but I ignore it.

"I don't really know," Sam says, looking at the ground. "Dean says it's not looking well. The thing got him pretty good."

"What thing?" I ask, confused.

"The… well, the doctors think it was a wolf or something," he says uneasily. "But they aren't sure. He lost a lot of blood, and he was torn up pretty bad, but the paramedics did enough to save his life. Now it's just a matter of him… you know, waking up."

"Waking up?"

"He's been in a coma for the past two and a half weeks, Jess," Sam says. I hear the tears in his voice even if I don't see them in his eyes. He's clearly upset, even if he doesn't look like it. "And it doesn't look like he's getting out of it."

I don't know what to say, so I say nothing. He offers no more information, just like I expected, but I give him some time in silence, just in case he's just fighting to find the right words to say. Finally, I say quietly, "Do you want to leave?" He looks up at me. I can read all the emotion in his face. "Because no one will hold it against you if you go and see your dad."

Well, Tommy might, but who cares about Tommy anyway?

"It's not… I don't…" Sam stops and looks me right in the eye. The sad that I see in them almost knocks me off my feet. "I don't think he'd _want _to see me, Jess."

That hits me hard, right in the middle of my chest. I don't let it show. It shouldn't hurt me. It should hurt Sam. But Sam's become such a large part of my life that what hurts him seems to inevitably hurt me. "Sam… I know you guys had problems, but—"

"We had more than problems, Jessica," Sam says quietly. He walks away from me and cracks an egg into the steadily turning beater. He watches the batter being spun around for a long while, and we both wait in silence. Back to me, he mutters, "He hated me."

"He didn't." I don't know this for sure. But I have a shred of hope burning bright inside me that says that Sam's wrong. John and Sam had issues, larger issues than most other people. I know that. Sam knows that. But John was still a _father_. He still loved his children, despite the friction. Right? "Sam, you guys fought a lot, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't love you."

"When I left for Stanford," Sam says, cracking another egg. "He told me that if I walked out the door, I should never come back. And he meant it." Of course, I already knew this from my investigation a few nights ago; but, for some reason, it comes as no less of a shock now as it did when I heard it on the balcony. "I've tried calling him. I've left messages with my email address and our house address. I haven't changed my cell number, just in case he wants to call again. He doesn't want to talk to me. He doesn't care." He sighs and faces me, leaning up against the counter. "If he didn't want me when he was alive, what makes you think he wants me when he's dead?"

Sometimes, Sam renders me speechless. As a person who always wants to put my two-cents in, it's annoying. But it seems to happen a lot lately. And now I start to see that he's making a point. I never pried this hard before I came to my family's house, but I guess it was my family that reminded me that I deserved a few answers every once and a while. I'm still a part of this relationship. I deserved a few of the answers that I gave Sam, right?

"Here," I say, scooping out a full cup of flour. "Put this in." The ingredients have been beating together for so long that it's probably not going to taste all that nice, but we started making them. We might as well see how they turn out.

Sam takes the cup and plops it into the bowl. A cloud of white power pops up, and he starts coughing, waving at the air in front of his face. "Why — _cough_, _cough—_ didn't you— _cough_— tell me it would do that?"

"I thought it was funnier for you to find out on your own."

A sly grin stretches across his face. I don't like it.

"What?" I ask worriedly, backing up. "What?"

Sam reaches his hand into the bag of flour and takes a pinch of it in his fingers.

"Sam, that's not funny," I say, slowly backing away from him as he advances. "It's not funny. Put it down." But he doesn't, and I make a run for it. But before I get three steps away, he reaches out one of his long, strong arms and pulls me close. With a goofy grin on his face, Sam traps me against the sink. "Don't do something you'll—" And I'm forced to stop talking as I receive a face full of flour. I blink away the extra particles, coughing slightly. "Winchester, you're going to regret that," I say, reaching behind me and grabbing the sprayer. Before Sam can even react, I flip on the water and spray him right in the face.

Hair soaked, Sam just laughs as water drips down his face. He wipes some drops away from his eyes, and a mischievous grin crosses his lips. He yanks the sprayer from my hands and soaks me while I squeal and try to protect my face. Laughing, I sprint across the kitchen and grab one of the eggs out of the carton. "I told you, Winchester, you don't want to mess with me." I hurl the egg in his direction, but he ducks at the last second, and it splatters against the window. Sam turns around, looks at the dripping yolk on the windowpane, and bursts out laughing.

"Nice—," he starts. Then he stops as an egg splatters against his chest, "aim."

The fight escalates to the point that the beater is turned off, and the eggy-sugary contents are splattered across Sam's cheeks and hair and coating my fingers. At one point, the bottle of vanilla is overturned, and puddles at my feet until it's large enough that I slip across the floor and land flat on my ass. Sam, who is already ducked behind the kitchen table, laughs hysterically and crawls across the floor to meet me. He plops by my side with a happy sigh, leaning up against the cabinets and turning his head over to give me a grin. "Truce, Moore. I don't think my eyes can take many more baking ingredients today." He laughs out loud, grabbing at a strand of my egg-covered curls. "I don't think your hair can either."

I'm about to answer when the backdoor opens up, and my father backs his way into the kitchen with a bag of groceries in his arms. "Tommy gave me a lift home, so— What in God's name…?" Dad starts, placing the bag blindly onto the counter while he looks around the mess of a kitchen in awe.

"Hey, Daddy," I say to him from the floor. He looks down, and when he sees the state of my boyfriend and I, he just laughs. "We, uh, had a problem with the mixer."

"I can see that," he chuckles. He looks up. "Dear Lord, Jessie, you got food on the ceiling."

"Blame Sam," I say, licking a sugary substance off my fingers. "He's the tall one."

"Well, maybe the tall one can help me get this _off _the ceiling," Dad says. He's not angry, which is a good thing. It's hard to make my dad angry. I'm just happy it wasn't Momma who walked through the door. She would've had a heart attack when she saw her kitchen in such a state of disarray.

"Yes, sir," Sam says, nodding his head.

"What's with this 'sir' business?" Dad asks. He offers out a hand that I take so I can get off the floor. I clamber awkwardly to my feet, and Dad reaches out for Sam. "You've made a big enough mess in my kitchen that we can consider you family now, right?" he jokes. "Call me Dad. Or at the least, Roger."

Sam nods. "Yes, sir."

Dad just chuckles and shakes his head. He opens up the cabinets under the sink and grabs out a bucket and some rags. "Let's get cleaning before your mother gets home. I'm qualified to deal with the heart attack, but I don't think I could deal with her wrath at the sight of this mess."


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: **OKAY! I finally got my laptop back, and I am ready to fill you in on Sam and Jessica's messed-up relationship.

**Chapter 10  
**

Cleaning was exhausting. There was a lot to clean, you understand. And we never did make those cookies. Still, we had a lot of fun. Sam _talked_, which was a miracle if you ask me. It took about an hour, but finally, all the food was scraped away, and everything was cleaned up. So Sam and I settled down on the couch, buried under some blankets while we decided on a movie. Before I could even get a movie into the DVD player, though, Sam had fallen asleep. He had an uncanny ability of doing that sometimes.

So while I settled down beside him, I pressed play on the _Runaway_ _Bride_. I snuggled close into my boyfriend and tucked an arm under my head, getting comfortable and ready to watch the movie. But with the stable drone of the television, Sam's steady breathing and warmth behind me, and my perfectly comfortable position tucked underneath his arm, I drifted off before the beginning credits even finished.

What feels like hours later, I wake up to Sam twitching behind me. Groggily, I sit up and turn to look at him, blinking with sleepy eyes. "Sam," I moan, shaking his shoulder. "Sam?" He doesn't wake up, but his twitching gets more intense. "Sam, I'm serious!" I say, giving him a shove. He mumbles something and twitches again. "What, are you having a seizure or something?" I mumble. "Cute, Sam, seriously. It's not funny."

A few moments later, he hasn't opened up his eyes. Confused, I poke his chest.

"Sam?"

"Deeeean?" Sam mutters in his sleep, starting to toss more violently than before.

"No, Sam, it's… Sam, what is going on with you?" I ask, giving his shoulder a shake. "Oh!"

Sam's arm darts out and smacks mine away. And when his arm finishes its full swing, he's smacked me clear across the face. I fall off the edge of the couch, clutching at my cheek while he starts screaming bloody murder, back arched, like he fighting off a shooting pain running through his body. His hands are clutched so tightly around the fabric of the couch that he could rip holes out of it. I scoot back across the rug, crawling backwards, hand pressed to the bridge of my cheek. Sam is yelling as loudly as he can now, saying nothing at all, just screaming.

"_Dad_!" I screech. "Dad, come quickly! _Dad_!"

My dad sprints down the staircase as fast as he can and stops in the living room where he sees me on the floor with a splash of pink across my face and Sam shaking and screaming on the couch. "Jessie?" he asks, kneeling on the ground beside me to look at my face. He reaches out gently to touch it, but I tear myself away.

"Dad! Sam! Look at him! Stop him! Make him stop!"

Dad stands up and cautiously tries to reach out to my boyfriend when all of a sudden, Sam darts straight up, eyes wild, face shining with sweat. "_NO_!" he roars. For a moment, the room goes silent, the only noises Sam's heaving breathing and the murmur of a newscaster, talking about the sudden disappearance of so-and-so from the Summit Mall (_Runaway Bride_ is apparently long over). Sam blinks wearily into the dim light flashing off the television screen, taking deep breaths until he composes himself enough to get another word in edgewise. "I… What happened?" he asks a bit breathlessly.

"You… you started twitching," I say, shakily getting to my feet with hot tears blurring my vision. I can't help it. It's hard to see my boyfriend like this. And it hurts to get smacked in the face by a man that was as strong as Sam. "I thought it was just another one of your bad dreams, thought I could just shake you awake. So I tried to wake you, and you… wouldn't wake up."

"Jessie yelled for me, and I came down," Dad finished my story, sensing how upset I am. "Son, are you all right?" he asks Sam carefully, eying my boyfriend as he runs a hand over his face.

Sam doesn't say anything. He just nods and slowly pans his gaze across the room, as if somehow, while he was sleeping, the furniture rearranged itself, and something was out of place. When he finds what he doesn't know that he's searching for, his jaw drops open a fraction, and his eyes widen. "Jess, your face—!" he exclaims, fumbling out of the folds of the throw blanket and jumping off the couch.

"It's fine," I tell him, turning my face away and placing a hand on my red cheek. "It hardly hurts," I lie.

"Shit, Jess…" Sam whispers, gently reaching out to me.

To my horror, my dad steps in between us.

"Sam, I think it would be better if you and I had a talk outside for a minute," he says quietly. He's not angry or accusing. He sounds worried, concerned for Sam's well being but mostly for my own.

"Dad, he didn't—," I start to say.

"Jessica, please. It won't take long," Dad cuts me off. Dad and I both stare pointedly at Sam, both of our eyes begging him for different responses. Sam, always a sucker for authority figures, casts his gaze at the ground.

"Of course, Dr. Moore," he says and starts towards the kitchen where he can exit through the back door. I grab my dad by the shoulder and pull him back, tear-filled blue eyes shining, worried.

"Daddy, he didn't mean it," I tell him quietly. "Honestly, we were just sleeping. I don't know what happened."

"Well, maybe he does," Dad says and tries to start off to the kitchen.

"Daddy, wait," I say. He stops and turns to look at me. "What are you going to say to him?"

"I'm just going to ask him what happened, Jessie," Dad says. "Sweetheart, what I want you to do is getting some ice for your cheek and go and call your mother, okay?"

"Dad—"

"Jessica Lee, do as I say," he says sternly giving me that look that makes me feel like I'm five years old all over again.

"Yes, Daddy." I hang my head and stomp to the kitchen. I open up the freezer door and grab out one of our ever-handy ice packs and place it to my cheek. When Dad looks at me, I gave him the most sarcastic smile I can. He shakes his head and walks outside to meet Sam. When the door clicks shuts, I let out an angry growl and chuck the ice pack at it. "You big jerk," I mumble while grabbing the home phone. I dial Momma's number, though I'm not sure how I remember it because I'm so mad. And I wait. I strain my ears to listen for something outside, but there's only a low murmur from Sam and Dad. I can't understand a word they're saying. "Momma, it's me," I say quietly, just in case Sam says something loudly. I don't want to miss the opportunity to hear it.

"Hello, Jessica," Mom says. She _sounds_ busy, with all this bustling in the background. I can't believe that Dad is making me bother her for something as little as _this_."Do you need something, sweetheart?"

"Dad says you have to come home," I say, leaning slyly to the side to see if I can get a look out the window at my boyfriend and my father. "But you don't really have to."

"Why? Did something happen?" Mom puts her hand over the receiver, but I can hear her say, "Ashley, I'm going home now. Something came up. Can you handle everything?" I roll my eyes. She doesn't _need _to come home. I just told her that. "Is everything all right, Jessie?"

"Everything is _fine_," I say tensely. "Dad's freaking out over nothing. There's nothing wrong."

"Well, that doesn't sound like your father, does it?" Mom says. I hear her car keys jingle in her hand. "He normally doesn't make mountains out of mole hills, does he?"

It's true. Dad's the calmest man I've ever met. All those years in the ER have trained him to deal with most situations with the most serene attitude ever. It's something that I need to learn because I tend to blow up at the slightest crisis. But this time, there _is _no crisis, which is why I'm not a blubbering mess on the phone right now. I trust Sam. He would never have done something like this on purpose. It was a bad dream, right? Just a bad dream.

"Yeah, well, this time he is," I say noncommittally. "Maybe he's getting soft with his old age."

"Jessica, would you like to tell me what's going on?" Mom asks as I hear her car door slam, and the engine on Dad's old pick-up truck rev. Mom needed the heavy duty car to get through the slush on the roads safely today.

"Mom, seriously, I think you're taking this a bit too far," I tell her with a roll of my eyes that I know that she can hear in my voice. "Dad just asked me to call you, so I am. We have a bit of situation that is completely under control and can wait until you get home. Sam had a nightmare—"

"Oh, is he all right?" my mom asks, like she's concerned about her own child.

"Yes, Momma, he's fine," I say, "but when you get home, can you not listen to a word that Daddy says? He's really over reacting. I'll tell you the real story after you get back from work, but don't let Dad fool you."

"I'll tell you what," Mom says, always ready to make a compromise to make everyone happy. "I'll go run a few errands that I didn't run earlier and _then _I'll come home."

I sigh. It's better than nothing. "Fine, but take your time."

"Jessica, wait, before you go, what's Sam's favorite color? I think I'm going to knit him a scarf for Christmas," she says absently as she charges her hand noisily through the depths of her purse. I can hear Dad's murmurs out the door; I'm desperate to get to Sam and my father's conversation.

"It's blue, Momma," I say, "and his favorite cookies are chocolate chip," I tell her before she asks. "I have to go pee. Love you, Momma, bye!" Then I hang up, and I rush up to the back door, straining my ears to listen to what Sam and my dad have been saying.

"…Sam, you know I need to ask you what really happened back there," Dad says. Just in time. Dad's already buttered him up with his usual "I'm-Going-To-Be-Really-Nice-And-Then-I'm-Going-To-Drop-A-Bomb-On-You" talk, and now he's getting to the awful part. I'm not listening for Sam's answer, not entirely. If I've learned anything at all this trip, it's that I can wait for Sam to be ready to tell me. It's my dad I'm mostly listening for. If he says one thing out of line, just one thing, I'm going to storm out there and throw the nearest thing I can get my hands out at him. Which I'm pretty sure is a charcoal grill, so he better hope he stays in line. But then I have to remember that it's my dad that I'm stalking. He's never done anything out of line in his life.

"Yes, sir," Sam murmurs.

"What happened back there?"

"I think I just had a bad dream, sir," Sam says quietly. I bite my lip. He's nervous as hell. The only time he uses "sir" this often is when he's really scared about something. He did the same thing when he went to talk to his economics professor about the exam results.

"You think?"

"Well, I don't know," Sam says. "I had no idea that I was going to wake up and… I swear, sir, I would have been no where near Jessica if I had any idea that I was going to hit her."

"Samuel, enough with this 'sir' thing. I'm not your drill sergeant," Dad says gently with a quiet laugh. He's trying to put Sam at ease. He can tell my boyfriend is anxious, but I don't think anything is going to work on him today. "I'm not mad at you. I'm just trying to help you out."

"There's nothing wrong," Sam tries to convince my dad.

"I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one," Dad says. "Considering what I just saw, I'm going to have to guess that _something_ is wrong."

"There isn't, though."

"Then I'm just going to have to assume that you're dangerous and ask you to leave my house." Silence. "You know, you're lucky that you didn't do anything worse, or you and I would have a big problem," Dad says agitatedly. See? Not as easy as it looks, is it, Pops? Sam says nothing. I'm pressed so hard against the door, I feel like I have splinters in my ear. Dad sighs and says gently, "This is strictly between you and me, Samuel. I'm not going to tell Jessica or anyone else if you don't want me to."

Sam hesitates. I feel like he knows I'm listening.

"I just want to know what I can do to help," Dad pushes easily. "I'm concerned about your well-being. Because whatever happened back there doesn't seem like it's going to be very healthy in the long run, does it?"

"They're just nightmares," Sam mutters.

"I can see that," Dad says. Then he waits patiently for more that Sam probably won't give him. I feel my dad's frustration. This is an everyday battle with Sam and me.

After a moment of intensely awkward silence, Sam says, "And that's it. I don't see how you can help with that. Everyone has nightmares, Dr. Moore."

Dad hates being called Dr. Moore, but he ignores it for now and goes on. He determined to figure my boyfriend out. I mean, really, you can try, Daddy, but you're not going to get too far. Sam's a brick wall of emotion. You'll never get anything out of him. "Not everyone wakes up screaming."

Sam doesn't say anything.

"Son, if you're dating my daughter, you're part of this family, whether you want to be or not," he tells him with an edge of laughter in his voice. "We just want to make sure that you're okay. We're not attacking you, Samuel. We want to help."

"I appreciate it, I really do. But there's nothing wrong," Sam insists.

Dad sighs. He's giving up, which is weird. Dad never gives up on anything. "Then I'm going to have to ask you to sleep in the guest room for the rest of your visit, Samuel," he says, defeated. "I can't have you hurting my daughter. I know it was an accident, but it's not going to happen again, you understand." He wasn't being bossy. He was being as gentle as he possibly could, and part of me agreed with him. That had _hurt_. It was still stinging like a bitch. But still, wasn't that _my _decision if I didn't want Sam to sleep near me again?

"Dr. Moore—," Sam starts.

Dad cuts Sam off. "I'm sorry, but if I need to do my job as a father, I can't let her near someone who refuses to get help."

Dad's a manipulative little bitch. Is no one else seeing this?

I hear the crunch of snow as he paces around the thin layer on our porch. Impatiently, I find myself breaking my promise to him. I'm listening for his answers instead of asking. I'm stalking and prying, and it's wrong, but a selfish part of me knows that this may be the only chance I get to get a look inside my boyfriend's mind. I can't miss this opportunity. I know I can't.

"I've had nightmares since I was little," Sam admits with a sigh. "Really… awful, vivid nightmares." He pauses, as if that's all the explanation he's going to give, but apparently Dad has silently urged him along, and he speaks uneasily once more. "I don't remember when they started. My brother says I've been having them for almost as long as he can remember. Sometimes I wake up screaming, sometimes I wake up crying, and sometimes I wake up without doing anything at all. Jessica knows about them," he tells my Dad. "She's woken me up from a couple. I've told her about them." Yeah, barely.

"Do you have any idea what causes these dreams?" Dad asks patiently. I swear, if he wasn't such a renowned cardiologist now, he would make a great psychologist. "Any triggers that make them happen?"

There's a long pause. Sam mutters something that I can't hear, and Dad quietly presses for an answer. It's a few moments of hushed conversation before I finally hear Sam say, "I just… don't feel comfortable talking about this, Dr. Moore."

Anxiously, I squeeze closer to the door to hear better. "Fair enough," Dad says. He always knows what issues to stop pressing. "Though if you don't mind my asking, can you tell me what the dreams are about?"

Sam's silent. I'm practically clawing my way through the back door in eagerness for his answer. Somehow, I restrain until I hear Sam's choked voice through the crack. "I don't really want to talk about that either, sir."

"How often do you have these dreams?" Dad asks, pretending that he never asked the last two questions so Sam doesn't have to feel awkward about not being able to answer them. He's pretending to be considerate, but I can see right through that. My dad is a manipulative dick.

"Not very often," Sam says, though one can't be too sure if that's the truth. Just because he doesn't wake up screaming or crying doesn't mean that he doesn't have the nightmares on other nights. "A few times every couple months, I guess."

"Are they always like this?"

"Absolutely not, sir, no," Sam says instantly. "I've never done anything like that. I've yelled before, I guess. At least Jessica told me that I have. But I've never… been violent." If that was him being violent. He didn't mean to hurt me. He was just swinging his arm out.

"How long has this been happening?"

Factual history questions seem to put my boyfriend at ease today when normally they would have him running for the hills. Then again, Dad's gone the whole emotional route, and I'm sure these cold had facts are easier to talk about then how Sam _feels_.

"Since I was really little, my brother told me," Sam admits. "When I was really young, I'd just… I'd shake and cry, and no one could wake me up. Doctor called them night terrors, I think, but we never really knew if that was right."

In my mind's eyes, I can see Dad nod sagely. He knows all about those. "Sierra had those when she was about two years old," he says knowledgably. I could remember those days. Sure, I was only about five, but they were pretty frightening. She'd shriek at the top of her lungs. She'd shake or thrash in bed, and no matter what we all did, she just wouldn't wake up. So I spent a good couple of months sleeping in her room and going over to soothe her sleeping body while she whimpered. "Have you tried to get help for these? Have you seen a therapist? Or a sleeping clinic, maybe?"

A therapist? Dad, you're funny.

Sam, as I can imagine, shakes his head. He says, "I mean… well, truth is, ever since I met Jess, they got better." In spite of this nasty situation, I feel my heart warm a little bit. "I've never… I've never hit her before, Dr. Moore. I swear," he promises again, desperately.

Dad sighs. "I don't doubt you, Samuel," he says. "But now I have to doubt whether or not it will happen again in the future."

"Sir, I would never—"

"Not on purpose, but it seems that these are pretty random," Dad points out. "What if this happens when it's just you two in your home? What do I do then? I can't knowingly put my daughter in that danger." Not again. He was livid when he found out about Clay. Wouldn't let another boy _look _at me until I left for college, and even then, he was a bit crazy. A mixture of Sierra's constant reminders that he could go to jail and Mom's gentle but stern prodding got him to let go of that, lucky for Sam.

"What do you want me to do?" Sam asks earnestly. "I'll do anything."

"I think you and I need to have a nice long talk, Samuel," Dad says with a sigh. "About you and your father's relationship."

"My dad—?" Sam starts, confused.

At this, I'm scrambling, wrenching the door open. Dad isn't supposed to know what I said about John. I wasn't supposed to talk to him about it. I told Sam that I wouldn't talk to anyone ever again about Mr. Winchester, and right now, I really just don't want to upset Sam any more than he probably already is.

He has a point, though, now that I think about it. Now that I know for sure that Sam's dad was abusive, it would make sense that his dreams would have a connection. Maybe talking about it is all that Sam needs. Get it off his chest, and the bad dreams go away? It could work, or it could completely backfire. It just sort of depended on what mood Sam happened to be in when my father spoke to him.

"Momma's on her way home," I say when both men remain silent for a moment. "Do you want me to set the oven, and I can start a frozen pizza for lunch or something? Sierra should be home soon, and you know how hungry she gets."

Dad slowly takes his gaze off my boyfriend. "That sounds great, sweetheart. Thank you. Sam, why don't we talk later, all right, son?"

Sam nods slightly. "Yes, sir."

**Author's Note: **A really long update? Forgive me for the long period between chapters... Again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: **Let's just say how much I hate my computer sometimes. Losing files is no fun, especially when you had already written the next four chapters. Talk about a muse killer. Without further ado...

**Chapter 11**

"Jessica, where's your mother?" Dad asks, looking for the millionth time out the window over the sink.

"She said she was going to run errands really quickly… and something about knitting," I say. I paid so little attention to our conversation that I'm sure my mother could have told me that she was pregnant, and it wouldn't have fazed me.

One look at Dad's face, and I have to turn away to hide my smile. I have spoiled his plan. He and Mom are an unfortunate team. When there's a problem with my siblings or me, they always tag team and figure out what to do. Now that I've kept Mom from immediately coming to the house, I've kept Dad from figuring out how to go on with his conversation with Sam, and ultimately with how to torture me.

The pizza is in the oven, and Sam and Dad are situated at the kitchen table, awkwardly and silently sipping mugs of steaming coffee, when Sierra walks in, pink faced and smiling. "¡Hola, mi familia!" she exclaims with a horrendous Spanish accent. She plants a kiss on my father's cheeks before awkwardly toeing off her snow boots and leaning her snowboard against the wall. She yanks her hat off her head and shakes her curly blonde hair out. The pink stripe of her bangs is plastered against her forehead, but she doesn't seem to notice. She seems to sense the quiet in the room and asks solemnly, "Who died?"

"Sierra Kimberly, what did I say about snowboards in the house?" Dad says while sipping at his drink.

Sierra promptly wrenches the door open and tosses her snowboard out the back. She slams the door shut and plops her heavily-clothed, snow-covered self in the seat across from Sam. "Okay, so… is it Mom? Because if it's Mom, I'd rather you not tell me. My goldfish just died, and I don't think I can take losing two good people in one month."

"Your mother didn't die," Dad says with a roll of his eyes. "But if you leave your snowy boots on the floor again, she might come home, and _you'll_ die."

"Picky, picky today, aren't we, Pops?" Sierra asks as she stands up and grabs her boots. She tosses them outside right by her snowboard. Dad doesn't really care about where they are in the backyard, just as long as they aren't messing up his house. "Who got your panties in a twist?"

"Sierra," I say with a big fake smile as I grasp her upper arm with a death grip. "I need a, uh… tampon. Will you come help me with that really quickly?"

Both Sam and Dad look sufficiently embarrassed and give small coughs before turning to their mugs of coffee. Sierra, eyebrows knitted, lets me drag her out of the kitchen and into the living room. She yanks her arm out of my grip and says, "Okay, first off, _ow_. What's with the death grip?" She unzips her coat and walks to hang it in the mudroom. I follow her nervously, looking over my shoulder in attempt to see what's happening in the kitchen. "Second off, what the hell? Tampons?"

"It worked, didn't it?" I ask defensively. Sure, it wasn't well thought out, but it got the job done. "I have to talk to you about something."

"Obviously," Sierra says, shaking out her hair. She grabs onto my arm to steady herself as she pulls off her snow pants and hangs them in her cubby. For a moment, I am horrified, but I realize that she's wearing leggings underneath, and I can feel comfortable if my boyfriend walks in the room. "What's going on?"

"Dad wants to _Talk _to Sam," I say.

"Most men would like to get to know their future son-in-laws before they walk their daughters down the aisle. Right."

"No, I mean _Talk_. Like… _Talk Talk._"

"Oh."

Dad talks to everyone. Everyone talks to everyone. It's just a normal thing for people to do. It's how relationships grow, and people communicate. But my dad is special. No, Dad doesn't just talk. He Talks. With a capital T. He psychoanalyzes. I swear to you, he gets people into these funks, and they spill their guts to him even if they don't want to. He's like a freaking magician. Even when I didn't want to tell him about the bitchy girls at school, I'd be rattling off all my problems as soon as he sat me down with a mug of hot chocolate and a Frank Sinatra CD.

And the last thing I want Dad to do is Talk to my boyfriend because I know that the last thing my boyfriend wants is to be Talked to by my dad.

"What are you gonna do about that one, sis?" Sierra asks as she shakes out her hair and puts it into a ponytail.

"I need you to distract him, Sierra."

"You're joking me, right?"

"Oh, come on, Sierra!" I beg. I'm not above getting on my hands and knees and begging. "Please do this for me! I was the one who nursed you through your first hangover without telling Mom and Dad!"

"They found out anyway!" Sierra exclaims.

"Okay, sorry Mom is psychic," I remark. "Seriously, I will do anything for you if you do this for me. Be a good sister, please."

"I'm an incredible sister, thank you," Sierra says, "and I'd like to let you know that now you've greatly offended me."

"Sierra!" I beg. She stops being witty for a moment and looks me right in the eyes. Her sharp blue eyes narrowed, she frowns slightly.

"You're really upset about this, huh?"

"I don't want Sam to feel psychoanalyzed. He hates that," I explain.

"Yeah, but you have to admit, there's a lot you want to know about him," Sierra points out. She pulls off her overcoat and grabs a sweatshirt of my dad's from his cubby. Slipping it over her head, she says, "This is the perfect way to stay a safe distance and get some information."

I hesitate but shake my head. No. This isn't right. "That's manipulative, Si. I can't do that to him. Besides," I sigh, "I really wasn't supposed to talk to Dad about Sam in the first place."

"What do you mean?" Sierra asks. Now she seems suspicious. Great, Sam's only ally besides Melissa who is too nice to ever say something wrong, and I'm turning her against him. I need to learn how to word things right. Normally that's Sam's job. He's the lawyer.

"It's just… I told Mom and Dad about Sam's dad," I say quietly, "and the next night, Sam told me to stop running my mouth off about his dad. So if Dad goes talking to Sam about _his _dad, I think Sam's going to get the wrong idea."

"What about his dad?" Sierra, always a detective, asks me.

"None of your business," I say.

"Seriously? You're asking me for favors, and you won't give me something in return?" Sierra asks. "Weak, big sister. Very weak."

"Sierra, I told him I wouldn't talk about it," I whine at her. She's being so unfair.

"Well, you're talking about it now. Can't you just tell me what it is?" she begs me. "Come on, J, it's not like I'm gonna tell anyone. No one cares but our family, and it's not like I'm gonna run to Tommy about it. You know I'm not a snitch."

"I can't," I say with a shake of my head. "But I _need _your help. Please. I don't think our relationship can take a hit like this."

"Are you guys really that on the rocks?" Sierra asks. "I mean I knew you guys got in a fight, but I didn't know it was that bad."

"It's not, it's just…" I struggle to explain. "Sam's really guarded. And if I go running my mouth to other people about him, he's going to be really upset. More upset than anything else I could do to him. So can you _please_ help me? I'll owe you big time."

Sierra sighs heavily and rolls her eyes. "Fine, but you have to do whatever I say for a week this summer."

"Sounds like a slightly imbalanced deal, but I'll take it," I say, reaching out and shaking her hand.

"I'm the one getting mind-ninja-ed by Dad," Sierra says, returning my shake. "You try lying to him. It's hard."

"I appreciate it, Sierra," I say. "I really do."

"Yeah, yeah, so what do I say?" she asks.

"Um… anything, I don't care."

"Well, I just walked in and made a big scene, I can't exactly come back in and be depressed. He _might_ notice that something's up," she points out.

"Fine, uh… keep being happy, and when I offer you pizza, say no," I suggest.

"Why would I _ever_ say no to pizza?" Sierra asks. She eats everything. She and Tom would be great in an eating match, but Tommy always refuses. I think he's afraid he'll lose. I don't think his ego could take that.

"Good question," I say with a smile. "That's what Dad's going to have to figure out. Then all you have to do is get really defensive about it—'cause let's face it, you might not be moody, but you're really defensive." Sierra just shrugs. She knows it's true. I take a deep breath. "And… problem solved."

Sierra breaks out into a smile. "Jessica Moore, you are a devious little child. I'm going to need your help on how I can sneak in on New Year's."

"Thanks… just… don't mess up. Please."

"Since when have I ever messed up?"

With a silent agreement between us, we both walk back into the kitchen. Sierra throws herself at the table and grins at the two men seated across from her. I busy myself with the fridge, snorting inside at how good she is at it. No wonder she's gotten away with so much crap in the past. If she wasn't such a jock, she could be an actress. I'm about to offer her a cup of coffee when the oven timer beeps just on time. I pull it open and grab my oven mitts, placing the pizza on the counter to cool.

"Okay," I say happily, peeling off my mitts. "How many pieces do you want, Sierra?"

She opens her mouth to say how many (normally, she starts with three and grabs more later, but this time, I can tell by the look in her eyes, she's very depressed that she's going to get none). Instead, she looks down and looks ashamed of herself, nervously tucking her pink hair behind her ear. "Uh, none for me, thanks," she mutters quietly. She picks up the newspaper on the kitchen table, reading the headline about a child who got kidnapped from the local mall.

Sam just looks down into his coffee mug, noticing nothing, but I feel my heart soar when Dad takes the bait, and the concerned look draws across his face. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" he asked, reaching over and putting a hand on her forehead. "Are you sick?"

Sierra pulls away, looking annoyed. "No. I'm not sick. I'm just not hungry. What's wrong with that?" she snaps at him. I can tell her heart is breaking just by the shine in her eyes. She's such a Daddy's girl. She hates snapping at him. Sam looks up at me, shocked. I don't blame him. This seems really random if you're not a Moore.

"What's wrong with that is that I've known you your entire life, and not once in the last sixteen years have you ever refused a piece of pizza," Dad says gently, knitting his eyebrows.

"Yes, I have!" Sierra exclaims, indignant.

"When?" I ask, rolling my eyes. I decide to prompt the discussion. I don't want Dad to flake out and end up Talking to Sam anyway.

"When… when… I was at your graduation party," she flusters, glaring hard at me. I shudder. If she were actually mad at me, that wrath would have been ugly.

"Actually, you ate half of the pineapple pizza at my graduation party, and Grandma Marie got really mad at you, remember?" I ask her.

"Oh, piss off, Miss Perfect," Sierra snaps, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Sierra Kimberly Moore!" Dad exclaims, shocked. "We just want to help you out. If something's wrong, you can tell us. You know that."

"Nothing's wrong!" she barks at him, sounding like she's on the verge of tears. I need to nominate her for an Oscar. "God, I'm sorry that I'm a freaking pig, and I eat so much, Dad! Maybe I should just walk around looking like a whale for the rest of my life. Is that what you want? _God_!" she huffs, pushing back her chair and running out of the kitchen.

"Sierra, sweetie!" Dad exclaims, standing up and putting his mug of coffee down. "I'm sorry, Jessie. Maybe we can have lunch later?" he asks us.

I shake my head. "Go right ahead. I'll talk to her later too, if you need me to."

Dad leaves the kitchen and heads up to my sister's room. I send a quick prayer to Jesus and the whole gang for Sierra's mental health and turn to my boyfriend, who is looking sufficiently awkward. "Is she going to be all right?" he asks, as I turn to slice up the pizza.

I allot three pieces to Sierra and set them aside for her. "She's going to be fine," I tell him.

As an afterthought, I add two more pieces. She's going to be hungry.

**LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES**

There's a wild banging on my door. I look up, startled, from my People magazine. Sam is on the porch, talking on the phone— in daylight, finally— with his brother. Now that the cat was out of the bag about who Sam was talking to, he felt more comfortable with calling Dean during the day. Well, sort of during the day. The sun is setting behind the mountains, and everyone is settled into bed after a meal of traditional Italian spaghetti meal. All in the house is supposed to be quiet, except that this person is pounding on my door like they're trying to break it off its hinges.

"J, open up the door! This is important!" Sierra exclaims, punching at my door more rapidly. I scramble out of bed and swing open my door. She collapses inside, breathing heavily, slamming the object she so direly wanted open closed behind her. She leans against the door and says breathlessly, "Jess, it didn't work."

"What didn't work?" I ask, heart sinking.

"Dad caught me eating the pizza, for one thing," she says with a shake of her head, "and I just walked past Mom and Dad's room, and I heard them talking about what happened earlier today." She lifts up her head and smacks me hard on the upper arm.

"Ow!" I exclaim, giving it a rub. For such a small child, she has a lot of power behind her punch.

"What the _hell_?" Sierra exclaims angrily, stomping over to my bed and facing me, standing strong, with her arms crossed over her chest. "You didn't tell me that he _hit_ you! I _hope _the stupid bastard gets Talked to by Dad. And, you know what, I hope he gets Beaten by Tommy. I fucking hate him."

"Sierra, would you keep it down?" I snap, taking her by the shoulders and dragging her away from the veranda doors. "Look, it was an accident. He was asleep, okay? You really think I'd stay with him if he hit me? He'd be on the first plane back to Palo Alto, and he'd be packing up his stuff and leaving as soon as he got there."

Sierra snorts, tugging out of my grip. "Sleeping? How do you hit people when you sleep?"

"No, no, no, _no_," I groan, throwing myself on the edge of the bed and burying my face into my hands. "Not you, Sierra. You're supposed to be my ally!"

"How can I be your ally when I know this guy hit you? If he touches you, he's a scumbag, Jess!" she exclaims, obviously not caring if Sam heard her or not.

"He was having a _nightmare_, Sierra," I say exasperatedly, running a hand over my face and sighing. I look up at her desperately. "He was having a really bad nightmare, and he swung out, and he hit me. You don't know Sam like I do, Si. He wouldn't hurt me. He really wouldn't. I'm telling you the truth."

"How can we believe you the second time if you lied the first time?" Sierra had been young when I was dating Clay, but the relationship had affected her also. No one wants to see their sibling hurt. I understand that.

"Because… just because," I say. Sierra rolls her eyes and starts for the door.

"Well, I just came to tell you that I heard Mom and Dad talking, and Dad wants to talk to Sam tomorrow," she tells me over her shoulder.

I can't take this pressure anymore. I'm not this good at keeping things from my family. I always tried my best to be honest with them. Even through my relationship with Clay, I tried to be honest. If I didn't have something nice to say, I said nothing at all so that I could avoid lying. Sam was asking a lot of me, and he didn't realize it. I was going to burst if I didn't talk to someone soon. I wasn't like him. I needed to talk to people, or I would go insane.

"His dad was abusive," I blurt out as she twists the knob.

Sierra freezes and slowly turns to look at me, eyebrow raised. "What?"

"Sam," I mutter breathlessly, "his dad was abusive. He ran away from home when he was seventeen because his dad threw him through a glass door, and I think that's why Sam has the nightmares. I think that's why he's so defensive. And so scarred up. I think that's why he doesn't talk about his childhood. Because, I mean, really, no one wants to talk about that, you know? And sometimes I have to wake him up because he's whimpering in his sleep. And sometimes I wake him up while he's crying. And it's not easy for either of us. But I don't know if I'm right because he won't talk to me. But he doesn't want to talk to me. He's made that really clear. And I'm really scared that if our family pushes him too much, he's going to run away, just like he did to his family a couple of years ago." I didn't even pause to take a breath, to think. It was a conscious stream of everything I had in my head for the past few days. Hell, the past few years.

Sierra blinks. "Wow."

"I know," I say.

"Wow, so… he's stark raving coo coo for CoCo Puffs?" she asks.

"Sierra, I'm being serious!" I exclaim loudly, desperately. "He needs help, and he refuses to get it, and I know it's killing him. It's just… I don't want to lose him."

"Don't you think that you're going to lose him if he never finds himself?"

I knit my eyebrows. "What is that supposed to mean?" I ask.

"Well, come on, Jess," Sierra says exasperatedly. "If he just sits around and pretends that there's nothing wrong with him, he's never going to figure out who he really is, you know? He can't just deny all his real feelings and thoughts because he's afraid to face his past."

"Okay, who died and made you psychiatrist?" I say moodily.

"I'm just saying," Sierra says, hands up in defense, "Dad may have a point with this. Maybe the only way to make Sam better is to get rid of whatever is… bad inside of him."

My question is, how much bad is my father about to release?


End file.
